What is
this all about? That was a question I asked myself many times during my
initiation experiences. It is a question which you doubtless asked yourself,
and so has every other man who has forged on to the end of the Third Degree.
The language of the ritual, stately and beautiful as it usually is, is to
most of us a mystifying speech; and the stations and stages of the dramatic
actions are equally bewildering to the novice. Therefore is it that we ask
the question, "What is it all about?”

After we have become
familiarised with the ritual and have learned something of its drift and its
meaning, we discover that the Fraternity itself, as a whole, and apart from
any mystery in any one part or detail, is something almost too complex to
grasp. A member grows so accustomed to the goings on of his home lodge that
he loses his first sense of strangeness, but even so he hears ever and anon
such things of the antiquity, the universality, and the profundity of
Freemasonry as it exists in history and in the great world, as to make him
feel that for all his familiarity with one Masonic lodge, he is very much in
the dark about the Masonic Fraternity in its entirety.

13

14 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

What is Freemasonry?
What is it trying to do? How did it come to be? What are its central and
permanent teachings? It is to answer these questions—and they are such
questions as visit the mind of almost every Mason, however indifferent he
may be—that the philosophy of Masonry exists. To learn "what it is all
about," in the whole more especially than in the part, it is for this that
we philosophise about our mysteries.

The individual who
secures membership in a Masonic lodge becomes thereby the heir to a rich
tradition; that to which initiation gives him access is not something put
together in a day, and it will profit him little if he makes no attempt to
enter into his patrimony. He must learn something of the history of Masonry;
of its achievements in the great nations; of its outstanding teachers, and
what they have taught; of its ideas, principles, spirit.

Initiation alone does not
confer this knowledge (and could not): the member must himself strive to
make his own the inexhaustible riches of the Order. He must discover the
larger purposes of the Fraternity to which he belongs.

There is no authorised
interpretation of Freemasonry. The newly initiated brother does not find
waiting for him a ready-made Masonic creed, or a ready-made explanation of
the ritual—he must think Masonry out for himself. But to think Masonry out
for one's self is no easy task. It requires that one can see it in its own
large perspectives; that one knows the main outlines of its history; that
one knows it as it actually is, and what it is doing; and that one knows it
as it has been understood by its own authentic interpreters and prophets. It
is not easy to do this without guidance and help, and it is to give this
guidance and help that such a book as this is written.

There is still another
reason for a study of the philoso
WHAT IT IS ALL
ABOUT 15

phy or, as we here more familiarly
describe it, the teachings of Masonry. Our Fraternity is a world-wide
organisation with Grand Lodges in every state and practically every nation.
In this country alone it is a vast affair of some two million members and
forty-nine separate and independent Grand Lodges. To sustain and manage and
foster such a society costs the world untold sums of money and human effort.
How can Masonry justify its existence? What does it do to repay the world
for its own cost? In one form or another these questions are asked of almost
every member, and every member should be ready to give a true and adequate
answer. But to give such an answer requires that he shall have grasped the
large principles and be familiar with the outlines of the achievements of
the Craft, and this again is one of the purposes of our philosophising on
Masonry.

How can we arrive at a
philosophy of Masonry? How are we to learn the authentic interpretation of
the teachings of Masonry? What is the method of procedure whereby one who is
neither a general scholar nor a Masonic specialist may gain some such
comprehensive understanding of Masonry as has been called for in the
preceding paragraphs? In short, how may a man "get at it"?

One way to "get at it"
is to read one or two good Masonic histories. There is no need to go into
detail or to read up on the various side issues of merely antiquarian
interest; that is for the professional student. There is only need to get
the general drift of the story and to catch the outstanding events. To learn
what Masonry has actually accomplished in the world is to gain an insight
into its purposes and principles, for, like every other organisation, it has
revealed its spirit through its actions. From a knowledge of what the Order
has been and what it has done in the past one can easily
16 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

comprehend its own present nature and
principles, for Masonry has never had need to break with its own past! The
Masonry of to-day does not make war on the Masonry of yesterday. Its
character emerges clearly from its own history as a mountain stands out
above a fog; and what it has ever been—at least in a large way— it is now,
and doubtless always will be.

This same history forges
ceaselessly on, evermore renewing and making itself. It is going on to-day,
and the process is one that keeps publishing itself to the seeing eye, for,
after all, there is not much that is secret about the rich and tireless life
of the Fraternity; indeed, this life is constantly revealing itself
everywhere. Grand Lodges publish their Proceedings; men engaged in the
active duties of Masonic offices make reports of their functionings;
students of the Craft write articles and publish books; Masonic orators
deliver countless speeches; special Masonic conferences, whatever be their
nature, make known their business; most of the more important events get
into the daily papers; there are scores and scores of Masonic papers,
bulletins and journals, weekly, monthly and bi-monthly, and there are many
libraries, study clubs and learned societies everywhere endeavouring with
tireless zeal to make clear to members and profane "what it is all about."
So it turns out that to learn this for one's self one does not need to take
any one man's word for it; he can look about, and listen, and read up a
little, and thereby form his own conclusions. It is amazing, when one looks
into it, how much of the labour going on in the Craft is designed to make
clear, and to propagate and enforce the principles and teachings and spirit
of our great Order. To learn what are these teachings asks of us no rare
talents, no "inside knowledge," but only a little effort, a little time.

To the novice the
Masonic world seems very confusing,
WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT
17

it is so many-sided, so far-flung, so
clamorous with voices and the din of action; but this, after all, need not
frighten him away from an attempt to grasp that world with a comprehensive
understanding, for all of Masonry constantly revolves about a few great
ideas. These ideas confront one at every turn—what becomes more familiar to
an active Mason than such words as "Brotherhood," "Equality," "Toleration,"
etc., etc.—so that the youngest Entered Apprentice need have no difficulty
in getting at them. If he does get at them, and if he learns to understand
them as Masons understand them, they will help him greatly to gain that
comprehensive and inclusive understanding which we have been calling the
philosophy of Masonry.

Nothing has been said as
yet of the great teachers of Freemasonry. In the older days there were
Anderson, Oliver, Preston, Hutchinson, etc.; then came the philosophers of
the middle years, Pike, Krause, Mackey, Drummond, Parvin, Gould, Speth,
Crawley, and others; and in our own day Waite, Pound, Newton, etc., etc. In
the writings of these men the great and simple ideas of Freemasonry become
luminous and intelligible, so that he who runs may read.

In addition to all this
the member may take advantage of those interpretative devices which are a
part of the Craft itself, the lectures and monitorial explanations built
into the ritual of all the rites and degrees. None of these is
infallible—nor are any of them made compulsory to believe—but even when they
stray farthest from the original meaning of our symbols they are always
valuable in revealing the ideas and ideals of multitudes who have originated
or used them.

This much to show why we
should strive to make for our own mind a philosophy of Masonry, and in how
many ways one may arrive at that philosophy. There
18 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

remains only one word in caution. A
study of the philosophy of Masonry is not a study of philosophy; the Masonic
student as such has little interest in Plato and Aristotle, in
Neo-Platonism, Mysticism, Scholasticism, Rationalism, Idealism, Pragmatism,
Naturalism, etc. Masonry touches upon the circumference of each of these and
the other major philosophical systems, no doubt, but there is no such thing
as a Masonic philosophy any more than there is such a thing as a Masonic
religion. We speak of a philosophy of Masonry in the same sense that we
speak of a philosophy of government, or industry, or art, or science. We
mean that one studies Masonry in the same large, informed, inclusive and
critical way in which a political economist studies government or an
astronomer studies the stars. It would be a blessed thing if more of our
members were to lift up their eyes from the immediate and often petty
affairs of their own lodge room in order to gaze more often on those
profound and wise principles which are to our Fraternity what the laws of
nature are to the universe.

Chapter II

WHY MASONRY EMPLOYS RITUAL AND SYMBOLISM

Repetition
is of the essence of ritualism; and since nothing can sooner grow stale or
inept than repetition we find that many persons think of ritual as
meaningless stage play. To go through the same performance over and over, to
say the same words in the same way, and often not even to know the meaning
of these actions and these words, is not that rather childish? This
question, we take it, has come home to numberless Masons, especially
American Masons, for in this country we have so prized originality, novelty,
and individuality that we all have a tendency to despise and to fear
ceremonial. It may be well for us to reflect a little on ritual, what it is,
what it does for us, and why we may all, individualistic as we may be,
frankly and intelligently uphold it as having a just right to a major place
in the functionings of a Masonic lodge.

Man's being has been
shaped by a universe that loves repetition and ceremonial; the inspiration
to ritualism is everywhere. Night and day everlastingly succeed each other;
the four seasons continue their endless circumambulations, like the
candidate about the lodge room: the stars move about in their fixed orbits,
the tides rise and fall, moons wax and wane, seedtime and harvest come and
go, growth is followed by decay, birth is succeeded by death, and even the
comet, once deemed the most capricious of all the major objects of creation,
has been found to return upon his own path forever. As man gradually

19

20 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

became aware of the tirelessness of
these cyclic changes, and as he discovered how his own life was linked
thereto, he was filled with awe, and himself learned to form processions, to
move in the rhythms of the dance, and to devise solemn religious ceremonials
in the hope of discovering the secrets of the universe. Miss Jane Harrison,
in her "Ancient Art and Ritual," has given us a lifelike picture of early
man in his rude ritualisms and has taught us to see that to ritualise is in
man's nature, and that no amount of rationalising will ever eradicate from
his soul his penchant for thus expressing his thoughts and his emotions.

Accordingly, the human
society in which a man finds himself from his birth on is filled with the
elements of ceremony. When the child is born we have a christening; when it
enters church it is confirmed; it is taught to kneel when it says its
prayers; it is instructed how to comport itself at meals: when the wedding
day comes the neighbours are invited for a formal ceremony; and death is
sealed by a "service" which must usually be as much like the ceremony in
universal use as possible. When we meet or part we shake hands; the
gentleman tips his hat to the lady, and we all arise when a guest or a
stranger enters the room. Our courts and legislative assemblies have
ceremonies of their own, we learn to keep step when we march to war, and the
most informal public assembly insists on some semblance of order. All these
things are of the essence of ritual, and hard would it be to give a purely
rational justification for them. There is something in us that demands them.

Although the social
psychologist has not yet explained this penchant there is one advantage of
it which lies on the surface where we all can see: ritual floats a man out
of himself, and gives him a sense of a larger personality.

The boy playing in a
band, the soldier marching with his
RITUAL AND SYMBOLISM
21

company, the youth moving with his
athletic team, the adult in a parade—in these, and in numberless similar
instances, the individual forgets himself, and is swept by emotions which
seem to him grander and more worthful than his own habitual petty private
feelings. The enlargement of the individual consciousness into a group
consciousness, that, if we care to adopt psychological lingo, is the secret
of the prevalence of ritualistic ceremonies. If we will apply this fact to
the use of ritual in the Masonic lodge we shall be better able to appreciate
and to understand its practice there.

By having a ritual as
the basis of lodge work the lodge is saved from the caprices of the
individual, and from the dictatorship of some masterful leader. Suppose that
on each night that a degree is conferred the degree were to consist of a
speech by some brother, or by one of the officers, and that this speech
would be new for each occasion. For a time this might be refreshing and
novel, but after a while the speeches would lose their interest or would
become stereotyped, simply because there are so few men that can make a
successful speech. The same would hold true of any form of initiation that
might dispense with a ritual: the failure of the individual, or the
committee, entrusted with the ceremony; or the crankiness of some man
determined to have things his own way, or the low quality of it all, would
come in time to disgust everybody. Many churches in their present day
experience illustrate this, for those religious groups that have wholly
depended on the preacher to the exclusion of religious ritual are finding
their attendance falling away. The individual soon wears out: but a rich and
many-sided ritual, evolved through generations of usage, full of glancing
lights, shadows, and mysteries, is never at the mercy of individual caprices
or individual failures.

But it must not be
supposed that a ritual, at any rate
22 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

our Masonic ritual, excludes novelty,
and the opportunities for the individual to add to the richness of it all,
for there is always room for the member of the degree team to improve the
work by his better rendition of it, by his vocal interpretation, by
masterful gestures, by superiority of costume, and every lodge has
opportunities to show its own genius to the full by way of better equipment
and furnishings: moreover, for those who are able to give a speech there is
usually plenty of opportunity. The repetition of our ritual does not any
more destroy individuality than did the constant repetition of "Rip Van
Winkle" destroy the winsome personality of Joseph Jefferson.

Also it may be noted
that a ritual, at any rate such as ours, is far richer in meaning and power
than would be the production of any one man; it has been shaped by many
hands; its wisdom has come from many minds, and from ages of experience; the
art of it has ripened through time like the tints of a mountainside: there
is in it something profounder than any work of one person.

It is by means of the
ritual that Freemasonry maintains its own identity. Why have some of our
Protestant churches changed out of all recognition since their inception?
Because it has been left to each leader to shape things very much to suit
himself: a succession of private interpretations has overlaid the original
message. It would be so with us were it not for our ritual: that ritual of
course has changed, but so little, and so gradually, that to-night the young
man who takes his First Degree will say and do things very much as the young
men did several hundred years ago. Also, it is a satisfying thing for the
young man to-night to feel that what he is doing in a lodge in the United
States some other young man is doing across the world, and other young men,
here and elsewhere, will do for ages to come. And when that young man is
witnessing in his old age the initiation of
RITUAL AND SYMBOLISM
28

his favourite grandson it will bring
the tears to his eyes to see and hear just what he saw and heard on the
night of his own initiation. Thus it is that it is by means of the ritual
that the Fraternity keeps its identity and holds fast to its members the
whole world over, and is able to escape dissolution by the washings and the
attritions of time.

Furthermore we may say,
though there is little room to say more on so rich a subject, that the
everlasting repetition of the same ritual means that every word becomes
associated in the mind of each Mason with varied experiences. The fixed
element in the life of the lodge is like a solid rock on which the coral
build, or like an old homestead which gathers associations from the
generations that have lived in it.

And this ritualistic
element, being something that almost any man can learn, excludes no man from
participating in the lodge activities. If each lodge meeting meant a speech,
or a new programme, or some novelty, only a few gifted men could ever take a
part. As it is there is not a member so ungifted that he cannot at least
join in the battery of acclamation when a candidate is brought to light.

Were there more space
for our thoughts twice as much could be said. It is sufficient to recall to
our minds how great a treasure we have in our ritual, composed as it is of
riches drawn from all parts of the world and from all ages: and to know that
it is the Order's great secret of vitality, undying youth, and—this perhaps
has not been sufficiently suggested—of a genuine originality of individual
development. For there can be no freedom for a man where there is not also
the strictest regulations.

If all the stars were to
take to novelty, and move freely about like birds in the air; if all the
familiar things about us were suddenly to lust after originality and begin

24 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

rapidly each to become something
else, we should have a great insanity and no Universe at all, and in such an
imbroglio freedom, spontaneity, originality, individual liberty would
vanish, for where order is not freedom cannot be.

Of Symbolism even more
can be said than of Ritualism, for it has been more universally in use and
is capable of a much wider application. Symbols were the first speech of
man. Before words and letters were devised pictures were drawn to convey
thoughts, and arbitrary signs were made to stand for many things. Nearly all
primitive language is symbolical language, for "the voice of the sign," as
Robert Freke Gould has described it, can be understood by children and
savages. And in our own present day Society, after the use of words has been
refined almost infinitely, symbols remain in use on every hand. The crepe on
the door is the sign of death; a ring stands for the engagement of a man and
a woman, or for their wedding; the lily signifies Easter and immortality,
and the employment of buttons, badges, heraldic devices, flags, and what
not, is endless. If one could trace a human life through every detail of its
existence from birth to death, he would find that human existence is all
covered over with symbols, like the Red Man's tepee.

There is nothing
arbitrary or simple-minded in the use of a device so universal, neither is
there any difficulty in discovering why it is that symbols are so native to
us all.

For one thing, a symbol
does not exhaust itself so quickly as words. There is mystery and depth in
it, an infinity of suggestiveness, an incitement to new approaches of
thought. Suppose, for example, that we should substitute a set speech to
convey to a candidate the lesson inculcated by the drama of Hiram Abiff! The
RITUAL AND SYMBOLISM
25

mere abstract ideas could be thus
expressed but how soon they would lose their power over the man's mind! As
it is, no man can witness the symbolical presentation of the tragedy, even
for the hundredth time, without finding himself in a new mood, or in the
possession of new thoughts. There is something inexhaustible in the symbol,
so that it will live long after many languages have died. It keeps saying to
us, "You have rightly guessed this meaning, and that; but I have a thousand
other meanings you have not yet hit upon.”

This suggests another of
the best uses of symbolism. We cannot learn the message of a symbol with a
merely passive and receptive mind, because it is of the genius of symbolism
to hide as well as to reveal. When a thing is conveyed to us in clear simple
words, or in plain pictures, such as one sees in the movies, there is no
need that one make a great effort of his own mind to comprehend it all; but
when a symbol is put before us, and we have a reason for securing its
message to us, our own minds must act, for no symbol wears its meaning on
its sleeve. Its value for us is like gold hidden away in the mountain—the
miner must dig for it. And that in itself is a virtue, because many men are
cursed by the refusal to use their own faculties. They go through the whole
of their lives parroting other men's thoughts, and such a life is
necessarily lacking in the pleasure of making mental discoveries, which is
one of life's richest joys.

All the greatest things,
love, friendship, death, immortality, religion, patriotism, etc., speak to
us through symbols. A flag fluttering at the head of a column of soldiers
will stir us as can no oratory: a cross will suggest more about death than
any sermon. Perhaps this is because the symbol has so many avenues through
which to reach the mind; it partakes of the qualities of the picture, of
acts, of sounds, of words, and of ceremony,
26 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

and because of its wide use and great
antiquity there cling about it untold associations.

A symbol, unless it is
one invented by some individual in a purely arbitrary way, is usually
understood everywhere; it speaks a universal language. A circle to us means
"infinity," because it has neither beginning nor end. It means the same
thing in India and Japan. It meant the same thing to men who lived before
the dawn of history. Freemasonry could never have become a worldwide
institution had not its ritual been an assemblage of symbols, had not it
learned long ago to teach by means of emblems and symbols. If its teachings
were set down in a book that book would have to be translated from language
to language, never a satisfactory process; speaking in symbols, its language
is "understanded of the people" everywhere.

Also, the symbolical
character of the teaching of Freemasonry has tended toward that intellectual
tolerance which is one of its glories. There can be no dogmatic and official
interpretation of a symbol to compel the unwilling assent of any mind; the
symbol's message is, by virtue of its very nature, fluid and free, so that
every man has a right to think it out for himself. Of Masonic teachers and
scholars there have been many—Oliver, Preston, Pike, Mackey, and others
equally as honourable to our history—and these have given us noble
interpretations of Masonry, but no Mason is ever compelled to accept them
unless he chooses to. In a great Order which teaches by means of the living
"voice of the sign" there never can be a pope.

Which reminds us that
symbolism in itself is no infallible thing, and not the whole of wisdom.
Just as there are good books and bad, and good men and bad, so are there
good and bad symbols, and each one must
RITUAL AND SYMBOLISM
27

keep toward all symbolisms an active
and critical mind. We must always discriminate.

After studying the
philosophy of symbolism under the leadership of the foregoing hints it will
be well for the student to investigate a further question: What rule shall
we go by in trying to interpret Masonic symbols? What was said of each
member's right to think out the symbols for himself did not imply, of
course, that he ever has a right to interpret a Masonic symbol without
thinking, or that he can ever discover a true interpretation without due
regard for what others have thought of it. That procedure would be not free
thought but an absence of thought. I myself believe in, and have found in
practice the soundness of, the historical principle of interpretation. By
this is meant that if we undertake to interpret some symbol we must first
try to learn what that symbol has always meant to the Fraternity during
times past. If we ask ourselves, for example, what is the meaning of the
square and compass, we should try to discover when that symbol came into use
in the Fraternity; why it thus came into use; what it then meant, and then
we should try to learn what the Fraternity has understood by this symbol
during the subsequent centuries. This would save us from an interpretation
based on ignorance, or arbitrariness, or our own crotchets, and it would
also throw new light for us on what Freemasonry as a whole means.

Chapter III

THE MEANING OF INITIATION AND OF SECRECY

Many a man
has left the Masonic lodge room after the last night of his initiation with
the feeling that what he has seen and heard has all been very interesting
and impressive but also very queer: it has been so entirely different from
the other experiences of his life that it all seems unreal, a strange piece
of formality, as if somebody had devised it as an ornate but merely formal
way of getting a man inducted into Masonry. It is no wonder that many who go
away with such impressions never again take much interest in the ceremonies
of initiation. What such a man needs is to have brought home to him that
which is the main contention of this present series of studies, namely, that
initiation, along with all the more important features of our Craft, is not
a strange thing arbitrarily devised by somebody for ornamental and
ceremonial purposes, but normal, and natural, and inevitable, —just as
natural as the blowing wind or the falling snow. Initiation is something
that has been in universal use from the beginning of the world, and it is
therefore as human a piece of business as anything that we do, albeit not so
common perhaps.

Instead of, approaching
the matter in the abstract it is well to begin by observing just what
happens to a candidate during the process of his initiation into
Freemasonry. First of all, he signs a paper setting forth certain important
facts about himself: then he participates in the "work" for a few nights: he
binds himself by a solemn

28

MEANING OF INITIATION AND SECRECY
29

obligation to do certain things and
not to do certain other things: he takes the oath of secrecy which covers
the ceremonies and also what may be said or done in lodge at any time: he
contracts to give financial support to the Craft according to its laws
thereon: he enters into a new relation with a large group of men who have
been similarly initiated and sworn; and he places himself for life under a
set of very definite and very noble influences. One could add other items to
this list, but as it is it is sufficiently ample to recall to our minds just
what is actually done through the process of initiation; and it is perfectly
plain that, except for some words and actions in the ceremonies, there is
nothing in all this to give anybody the slightest feeling that it is strange
or formal: it is all as real and as natural as conducting a day's business.
This is something worth remembering because many who have approached the
subject of initiation from a merely abstract and theoretical position are
very apt to give us impossible theories of the matter, land us in
difficulties, and make us believe that Masonic initiation is something very
esoteric or occult: as a matter of actual fact it is nothing of the kind.

I have said that during
the ceremonies incidental to initiation some things are done and said that
do seem queer to any man when first he encounters them. But even these
elements in our "mysteries" are not there for any fantastic or unreal
purpose: they are there because we have inherited them from the past, and
because they still have for us such valuable meanings that we continue to
hold to them. If there is anything in the ritual that seems fantastic to a
man he needs only to study the history of the same to have such an
impression obliterated.

The unfortunate thing is
that many candidates pass through the entire process of initiation without
being affected to any depth at all. Why is this? Very often it
30 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

is the candidate's own fault. Before
entering, or even seeking to: enter, such an institution as Freemasonry he
should learn something about it; at least a little of its history, and as
much as possible about its present activities. And then, after he has passed
through the initiation ceremonies, he should stop long enough to find out
what it all means. A man to be impressed by anything must do his own part:
nothing can act as a substitute for his own brains, feelings, and actions.
Moreover, Masonic initiation is a blessing, carrying with it many precious
privileges, and it is therefore worth something of an effort on the part of
a man who seeks it.

In all other cases the
poor effect of initiation is due to the carelessness of the lodge. A ritual
cannot be satisfactorily administered in a mechanical way, as if all one had
to do was to turn the crank of a mill. Nor can it ever be a cut-and-dried
thing which needs no thought and initiative behind it. No lodge has a right
to shove a man through three degrees and then dismiss him without first
endeavouring to instruct him in the meaning of it all, without trying to
bring home to him what it was designed to do. The whole process should be
made one of the most crucial experiences of the candidate's life, one that
he can never forget, one that will change him to the centre of his being,
else it is not a real initiation at all, but an imitation.

For consider what takes
place inside a man when initiation has been a success. The word itself
suggests a "new birth." The experience, whenever it actually occurs, is a
profound one. It is like the crisis of adolescence when a boy finds himself
passing through a mysterious change that throws his whole being into
turmoil; he grows moody; his beard makes its appearance; his voice changes;
he gets a new expression in his face; his muscles develop; his interests
change; he begins to take
MEANING OF INITIATION AND SECRECY
31

more interest in the opposite sex; he
is no longer a boy but a young man. Or it is like the moral and spiritual
change which comes over a man who passes through the religious experience
known as "conversion" or "regeneration"; he finds himself with a new set of
interests; he behaves differently to his family and his fellows; he forms
new habits, such as prayer and church attendance; he has a new feeling about
God; new beliefs about the great questions that concern man; he calls
himself a "new" man. He has been initiated into the religious life, which is
to him a new world of experience, and he can never again become what he was,
even though all these new interests fade away.

Masonic initiation is
intended to be quite as profound and as revolutionising an experience. As a
result of it the candidate should become a new man: he should have a new
range of thought; a new feeling about mankind; a new idea about God; a new
confidence in immortality; a new passion for brotherhood; a new generosity
and charity. The whole purpose of the ritual, of the symbols, of all that is
done and said, is solemnly to bring about such a transformation in the man.
If initiation does not accomplish something of this it is a failure; if it
does accomplish it, that fact should forever silence those who have looked
upon it as an elaborate and expensive piece of formalism.

Secrecy is so prominent
a characteristic of Freemasonry that often in literature we find the latter
word used as a synonym of the former, as when we read how a circle of
friends were so intimate that there was a "kind of freemasonry" among them.
To some this is most objectionable because they deem it beneath the dignity
of a great Order to conceal its functionings behind so opaque a veil: or
they think that what must be so effectually hidden must contain some taint,
or have anti-social
32 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

influences. "If it is good and
noble," so they say, "why hide your light under a bushel? if your hidden
actions are reprehensible then is all your secrecy an elaborate hypocrisy !
or it may be that all your secrecy is merely an elaborate bit of child's
play designed to appeal to curiosity mongers. In any event our best public
institutions, the church, school, public hospitals, libraries, and even our
political governments, have no need of such a veil." The fallacy underlying
these objections is that the objectors do not know that Masonic secrecy is a
peculiar kind of secrecy designed and preserved expressly for the needs of
such an institution.

Anyhow, there is nothing
objectionable or unfamiliar about secrecy; it is a human necessity found
everywhere, and often where it is not apparently in evidence it will be
found on examination to equal or even exceed that which lies about the
gateways of our Fraternity. Nothing is more zealously guarded than the home.
The directors of a business corporation keep their deliberations to
themselves. Friendship is based on mutual confidence and that means much
secrecy. Governments are very public in function but they are still obliged
to carry on many of their activities behind the scenes. Indeed, what would
life be without this honourable kind of concealment! how would any man
endure to go about in the world with all his inner life exposed to view like
the goods in a show window !

Freemasonry partakes of
the nature of this more common kind of secrecy, but there is secrecy and
secrecy, and one variety of it is one about which we do not often think: I
refer to that which is as yet unknown to us, not because we are shut out
from it, but because we are not yet prepared or equipped to learn it. Music
is a terra incognita to one who knows not one note from another, and cannot
recognise a tune. Literature is a vast
MEANING OF INITIATION AND SECRECY
38

unknown to the illiterate. Chemistry,
physics, geology, astronomy, or any of the sciences, what a "freemasonry" is
it in which they exist ! for they are revealed only to the initiated. They
are not hidden from us by any arbitrary authority; they are hidden because
we wear the hoodwink of ignorance. Much of our Masonic secrecy is of this
character. As a matter of fact it is surprising how little of it there is
that cannot be published to outsiders: but there is a vast deal of it that
remains unknown even to its own initiates because they have as yet made no
effort to learn it.

Also, Masonic secrecy
exists for certain definite purposes. The Fraternity itself exists in order
to keep fixed on a man a certain set of influences, and in order to bring
about certain changes in the world, etc.: its secrecy is a

means to that end, and helps to make
such a purpose possible. If a lodge room were as open to the general public
as a street corner all that goes specifically by the name of Masonry would
necessarily vanish and the very purpose for which the Order exists would be
defeated.

Experience teaches this
fact as well as reflection. The Order has existed in one form or another for
we know not how many centuries, and it has always been a secret society.
Other modern fraternities have found secrecy equally necessary. So also with
fraternities in earlier times. The Mysteries hedged themselves about in the
most elaborate fashion. The Collegia held their meetings behind tiled doors.
The Christian church, in at least one period of its history, often did the
same; and so did the numberless guilds of Mediaeval Europe.

There is a psychology of
secrecy, the discussion of which is to be recommended, though little space
is available for it here. What we value we instinctively guard. Curtains are
drawn before the more intimate things of life. Even religion, to a majority
of individuals, is a
34 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

thing for the closet rather than for
the public stage, and many a man would rather be thought an infidel than be
caught at prayer. In all these, and in scores of cases like them, secrecy is
used as a screen whereby to protect sensitive feelings. In many other
equally familiar cases secrecy is employed to awaken the desire to explore,
the curiosity to know; it stimulates a man to make search for that which is
presented to him as a mystery. One may see Masonic secrecy affecting the
minds of brethren in the lodge room in both these ways: some are happy to be
there because they can give expression to thoughts, to ideals, and to
aspirations, often religious, among trusted brethren: and some are there
because the veil thrown about our mysteries has enticed them to try to lift
it.

To my own mind the
noblest effect of Masonic secrecy is found in the atmosphere of kindliness
which it throws about all the operations of brotherly aid and charity. The
unfortunate member is often helped almost without himself knowing whence his
succor comes; there is no publishing abroad of the affliction; the thing is
not bragged about; usually the object of this charity does not even make an
application: like the stretching forth of a gentle hand he feels himself
supported in such wise that his pride need not sink to the level of his
fortunes.

If Masonic secrecy did
nothing else it would be abundantly justified to every delicate and
charitable mind.

While keeping all this
in mind it is also well to remember that, after all, Masons themselves
sometimes do not understand that this, the secrecy of the Craft, aside from
the single matter of its charity, is almost wholly concerned with method
rather than with matter. If one will carefully consider the oath of secrecy
he made while taking his obligation he will find that he is not in anywise
to reveal to others aught of the initiatory ceremony,
MEANING OF INITIATION AND SECRECY
35

or of what may be said in lodge: but
he is not sworn to keep secret that which Freemasonry really is! Its
principles, its history, its spirit, its ideals, its purposes and programmes,
he may publish to the world, and the more he publishes them the better.

Chapter IV

THE MASONIC THEORY OF THE GOOD LIFE

A man can
never hurt or help natural forces. He can spread his sail, but that does not
affect the wind. He can overturn the sod with his plough, but the sod does
not scream back at him with pain. He can send his wireless messages through
space, but that does not change the structure of the atmosphere. A man does
not have much choice in his dealings with nature. If he steps from a roof he
immediately falls to the earth, whatever be his opinions of gravity. The sun
shines, night darkens, seasons change, rain falls, the ocean moves through
its tides, but the will of man has nothing to do with all this A man's
relationship with his fellow men is very different. He can hurt or help
them, bless or curse. What he says may change the course of another's
fortunes: what he does may be a matter of life and death to another. And all
that he does to and with his fellows is largely under the control of his own
will, for he can choose to act or not to act, to think or not to think, to
speak or not to speak, and he can so choose when he knows that his thoughts,
words, or deeds will influence them greatly one way or another. This is also
true of a man's own self, and his relationship with himself: he can make his
own person the object of his thoughts and acts for good or ill, and, as
these thoughts and acts are of his own choosing, he is responsible, and they
become a part of his conduct. All the ways in which a man affects himself,
and in which men affect each other, for which

36

THE MASONIC THEORY OF THE GOOD LIFE
37

men are responsible, comprise the
materials of morality, of which ethics is the science.

Freemasonry has its own
interpretation of the principles of morality. It has its own ideals of human
conduct. For reasons of its own it emphasises certain duties, and encourages
certain ideals. In order to persuade men to act in a certain way it brings
to bear upon them certain influences and strives to neutralise other
influences which may oppose its purposes. It knows what it wants a man to
be, and human society in general to be, and it bends its efforts towards
that end. Masonic Ethics is ethics studied from this particular point of
view, in the light of Masonic principles and ideals, and in behalf of
Masonic purposes. It is the study of ethics as it bears on Masonry and of
Masonry as it bears on ethics. Such a study bulks large in the literature of
the Craft, in its philosophy, in its teachings, its ritual, and its
traditions, because Masonry is above all other things a moralistic
institution, which strives to realise on earth a definite ideal of conduct,
both private and public. It is unfortunate that no modern Masonic scholar
has yet attempted to make a careful study of Masonic history and literature
in order to build a System of Masonic Ethics, in the same way that
numberless other students have built up systems of Christian ethics, or
Chinese ethics, or Jewish, etc.

The majority of men know
as little of moral science as of any other science, and their conceptions of
"right" and "wrong" are, accordingly, often as valueless as their
conceptions of astronomy, or physics. From tradition, from the church, or
from hearsay, without ever having submitted it to careful scrutiny of sound
thinking, they have accepted into their minds a rough code of morals. This
code consists, for the most part, of two contrasted lists of actions: one,
of actions permitted; the other, of actions forbidden. Whenever the question
arises, Is such
38 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

and such a proposed action good or
bad? they refer the matter to their "lists" and act accordingly. A man says
to himself, Shall I gamble? Shall I send money to the missionaries? Shall I
tell this untruth to my neighbour? Shall I use tobacco? If he finds gambling
to be listed with his mental category of things forbidden he will look upon
it as a sin. If missionary gifts are in the list of things permitted, such
gifts are right, etc.

This procedure works
satisfactorily until the man comes into conflict with an entirely different
code. One example of this will suffice. A Frenchman, let it be supposed a
Christian also, finds that drinking wine is permitted by his own moral code.
An American Methodist, on the other hand, finds wine among the things most
violently forbidden by his own code. Who, or what, is to decide between
them? The Frenchman may appeal to the authority of the New Testament: so may
the Methodist. The Frenchman may say, My church has long ago decided this
matter: the Methodist may reply, Mine also has decided the matter. If the
Frenchman appeals to the tradition of this group, the Methodist can retort
in the same way, and to an opposite conclusion. It is plain that this
simple-minded "list" or code system of morality is one that breaks down the
moment a man seeks the ground that lies beneath it.

This is nothing other
than the age-old search for the seat of authority in morals. When a man is
in moral predicament, and does not know whether or not a given course of
action is right or wrong, to what final authority can he refer his problem?
In the writer's opinion there can be but one answer. Human experience, both
individual and racial, is the one final authority in morals. If a man does
something that injures his own body; or needlessly destroys something of
human value; or hurts another in any way; or deliberately makes himself or
THE MASONIC THEORY OF THE GOOD LIFE
39

others unhappy, that man does wrong.
Wrong is whatever hurts human life, or destroys human happiness; right is
whatever helps human life, and tends to sustain or increase human happiness.
There is but one way to learn what it is that hurts or helps and that is by
experience, and whenever one is not sure what experience has to say he is
obliged to make a moral experiment. Acts are not right or wrong
intrinsically, but according as their effects are hurtful or helpful. The
purpose of right living is not in order to render obedience to some code, or
to some supposed authority, but to enable a man to live richly, healthfully,
happily. A wise man may therefore often do something that may not be
approved by others, but the man who does something which his own experience
shows to be hurtful is a fool.

This does not mean that
a man can safely trust to his own experience alone: far otherwise, for often
a man's own experience is too meagre to be of any value. Others have lived
longer or more richly than he, or more wisely, and he can heed their
counsels. Others, by virtue of some special training, may better understand
the effects of a given course of action, and consequently have a right to
direct conduct, as a physician has a right to prescribe remedies. Nor can a
man dare to set his own private experience against the experience of a
nation, or of the race, as may be proved by a reference to slavery days,
when many planters found in their own experience that slavery seemed to be a
good for themselves and their slaves, whereas the experience of the United
States as a whole proved slavery to be a curse to all concerned. But,
whether the individual can trust to his own private experience, or must
defer to the larger and wiser experience of the race, it is human experience
which, in the last analysis, approves or condemns any given course of
conduct.

40 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Certain courses of
action have always and everywhere been found to be hurtful or harmful.
Wilfully to deceive another will be found hurtful in China as in America, in
the first century as well as in the twentieth: so also with habits of
gluttony or intemperance that destroy health; with extravagance, laziness,
cruelty, etc. One can't conceive of any social condition under which men
would not find these things to make for unhappiness. These permanent
verdicts of human experience become at last crystallised into principles
which nobody questions, and these principles, taken together, comprise a
system of morality. But, even so, all such principles are found to root in
human experience and its verdicts. Should the constitution of man come under
some mysterious change so that men would be made happier by gluttony, and
life made richer and stronger, then would gluttony become a good and not a
bad.

The vast majority of
moral problems, however, have not been, and never can be, permanently
settled: always the individual, so far as these things are concerned, must
decide for himself. Is the use of tobacco injurious? Some physicians say it
is, others say not: some men seem to smoke with impunity as well as
pleasure: others get headaches and nights of sleeplessness after a few
cigars: in such a case the individual must decide for himself, and, so long
as the question remains strictly a matter of private experience, he has no
right to decide for another. It is not the submission to a traditional code
of action that sets one apart as a man of principle and character; the
strong man, from the moral point of view, is he who, when experience
decides, abides the verdict, though it may oppose many selfish interests and
interfere with many cherished pleasures.

The test of experience
is equally valid when applied to the more religious and idealistic questions
of human con
THE MASONIC THEORY OF THE GOOD LIFE
41

duct: self-sacrifices, heroisms,
martyrdoms, these, like the more commonplace matters of daily life, are
approved or condemned according as they make for or against human life. The
monks who went off to live cenobite lives in the Thebaid considered
themselves very holy men, but the verdict of the subsequent centuries has
been against them, for such a life proved itself to be harmful to the
healthfulness and happiness of the world. The thousands who went away to the
Crusades considered themselves divinely commissioned, but to-day a saner
judgment, though it admires the element of heroism in the Crusaders,
condemns the enterprise as a whole as having been a useless piece of costly
fanaticism. Emerson and Thoreau, inflamed by the enthusiasms of the hour,
hailed John Brown as the hero of the nation after his wild attempt on
Harper's Ferry: James Ford Rhodes, in the light of the full consequences of
the old Puritan's campaign, shows that John Brown let loose a train of
bloody and unfortunate consequences, from which the slaves themselves were
the chief sufferers. All this is to say that ideals, aspirations, heroisms,
self-sacrifices, and all other similar acts and aims are not in themselves
any more "righteous" than are other more familiar matters of conduct, and
that they are to be adjudged "right" or "wrong" only in light of the
conditions under which they are done and the consequences that flow from
them.

This philosophising
about moral conduct is of great value to us in our periods of leisure and
reflection, but a man can't stop to philosophise, often he cannot even stop
to weigh probabilities, and to balance motives, while he is in the midst of
his daily living, for usually decisions must be made on the spot, and often
they are made unconsciously, like an instinctive action. The thing that
determines a man in all such decisions is his moral "nature," and that
nature is the man's fixed system of
42 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

habits, reactions, judgments,
emotions, etc., that has been built out of all his past experience. A good
man is one who has in the past so lived that he habitually acts so as to be
happy himself and make others happy (the word "happy" here is used in its
widest possible meaning). He may now and then do something that he knows to
be wrong, but his "nature," the constant bias of his will, is toward those
things that make for the welfare of human life. A bad man is one whose very
nature is such that he instinctively does things that hurt others or
himself, though he may often be capable of tenderness, self-sacrifices, or
some momentary nobility.

A man acts from his
nature. This fact is recognised in the account of the conversation Jesus had
with Nicodemus whom the Master told that he had first to be "born again."
This phrase has passed into theology as the doctrine of "regeneration," or
"new birth," and it is a sound doctrine, for many men are so ingrained with
badness that their whole nature must be radically changed before they can be
trusted to live in harmony and happiness with their fellows.

This doctrine of a "new
birth" seems to lie at the heart of Masonry's great drama of Hiram Abiff.
Masonic interpreters have differed greatly among themselves as to the
meaning of that acted parable, but they nearly all hold in common the belief
that it somehow means that, in order to be a just and true brother a man
must be "born again" so that his nature is changed to act in unison with a
new world. How can this be brought about? It is one of the points where
morality melts into religion, for nearly all the religions have applied
themselves to creating a new nature in man, and they all seek to do it by
bringing Divine Power to bear upon the individual. Freemasonry is here at
one with religion, for it also resorts to prayer, to the seeking of the will
of God. It
THE MASONIC THEORY OF THE GOOD LIFE
43

also makes use of the powers of
brotherhood, of reasoning, of ritual, and all the offices of fraternity. The
whole ceremony is in itself an attempt to create a new nature in the
candidate, and it is also, from another point of view, a symbol of those
influences in this world which have such regenerative powers; these
influences, of course, are numberless, and many of them have no direct
connection with religion, as, for example, the affection for a parent,
education, misfortune, etc., any one of which may, under certain
circumstances, bring about a profound change in some individual's moral
nature.

What has been said of
the individual's moral life may be said, in some degree or other, of society
at large. How is a great social institution judged? By social experience: by
its influence on the life of the community. If some institution, however
long established, or however venerated, begins to cause unhappiness among
men, dissension, unrest, poverty, or what not, that institution, though it
may be sanctioned by the law of the land, becomes evil, and all right
thinking men must become its enemies. Whatever social force makes against
the welfare of men and women, that social force is evil, though it wear the
name of morality itself; whatever social force makes for the welfare of
society, that is good, though it be as new as the morning. That an
institution is old, or religious, or legal, is a fact to be taken into
careful consideration, but such a fact has no weight as against the plain
influences of that institution as it works among men. For this reason there
is such a thing as a social morality. It is the study of social forces in
the light of their results and effects in the community; it is the moral
appraisal of social institutions. It is the fostering of the forces that
make for common welfare, and the opposition of those that make against life.

Always, morality is for
the sake of men and women:
44 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

it is here in order that they may
have life and have it more abundantly. Each man lives in a community where
he acts and is acted upon, where he is influenced by others and himself
influences others. His own nature is a bundle of energies and influences
upon which happiness depends. To so adjust one's self to others, to so learn
to govern one's self, and to so adjust one's life to the forces of nature,
in Order that one's life may be full, rich, happy, that is the aim of
morality. It is also the aim of Masonry, for that great institution exists
in order that men may live happily together and in order that human life,
individual or social, may evermore rise to high and higher issues.

Chapter V

"WE MEET UPON THE LEVEL”

It is not often that one
of the subjects of speculative thought becomes the burning issue of the
hour, but that is what happened in our own national history between 185o and
1861 with the doctrine of equality. The whole matter, needless to say, was
brought to the front by the slavery issue. Anti-slavery orators never
wearied of reminding their southern friends that the fathers of the nation,
in their Declaration of Independence, had openly proclaimed "that all men
are created equal": if that is true, they argued, then negroes deserve the
rights of citizenship, for negroes are men. The pro-slavery advocates
retorted by saying that the fathers of the country, many of them, had
themselves been slave holders, and that they had really meant to say that
"all men are created equal except negroes." He who reads through the more
important debates on that subject—such a one will be richly rewarded—will
learn how exceedingly difficult it is to frame any definition of human
equality that will at once do justice to things as they are and to things as
they ought to be. Equality is an aspiration (in Masonry as elsewhere), a
hope, a dream, an ideal, hard to capture in a net of words, difficult to
envisage by the mind, so that one must remain content after all his thinking
about the matter if he has not yet been able to think it through.

It is as difficult to
arrive at a clear conception of equality from the history of Masonry as it
is from the history of this nation. The old Craft Mason did not

45

46
THE GREAT
TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

have any equality except in a very
special sense. His guild was a helpless part of an aristocratic social
order.

He himself had a place in
his own guild determined by the most rigorous regulations laid down from
above. The guilds themselves were graded in importance, and the members
inside each guild were held fast in a similar hierarchy. There is no
evidence to show that at any time prior to 1717 any form of Masonry
explicitly taught and enforced the doctrine of equality. Subsequent to 1717
the doctrine has come to the fore, and in some countries has almost occupied
the first place among Masonic teachings. But even so there have been many
exceptions. In the Masonry of Latin countries equality has not, for obvious
reasons, been very much emphasised. Even in England, the home of democracy,
it has never had .a very rigorous application. When the Earl of Carnarvon
inducted King Edward VII into his seat as Grand Master he was careful to
remind that potentate that English Masonry had never been subversive of the
monarchical system in England as it had been in other countries.

It is in
France and in America that we find the Masonic doctrine of equality most in
evidence, and most influential. The part played by Masonry in the French
Revolution is, and perhaps will ever remain, pretty much of a mystery. But
there is sound evidence to prove that Masonry had much to do with convincing
the French masses that they had rights of their own. To this day liberty and
democracy are widely understood in France in the equalitarian sense.
"Liberty, Fraternity, Equality” is a slogan that has not yet lost its power
of appeal.

But it is in our own
land that equality has played its major part in Masonic history. It may be
that it was Masonry itself (though this point is hotly disputed) that wrote
into the; Declaration the words "All men are created
"WE MEET UPON THE LEVEL"
47

equal." It is certain that Masonry
had much to do with the strain of equalitarianism that runs through the
Constitution. It is certain that the Craft was in the forefront in demanding
for the negro the full rights of that principle. And it is certain that at
the present moment equality and Masonry are almost synonymous in many minds.

It is Russia, strange to
say, that now finds equality a living issue. Sovietism, unless we have been
all deceived as to its nature and purposes, goes in for equality as the
chief good. To level all classes, to do away with distinctions, even such
distinctions as those that exist between the learned and the unlearned,
seems to be a part of the Soviet regime. It would be a curious experiment to
send a questionnaire around to our Masonic leaders and spokesmen to ask them
what they think of the Soviet programme, and if they would be willing to see
Equality really tried out. The answers might not throw much light on the
Russian experiment, but they would surely help us all to learn just what
equality means to Masons.

I have my own theory as
to what Equality means to Masons, and I shall give it: but I give it as
nothing other than my own private opinion, and not as an expression of a
generally held formulation of the doctrine. I wish that such a general
interpretation could be made, because Masonic thinking demands it. Until we
can work out such an interpretation the whole matter will ever remain as
foggy as it seems to be now (if one may judge from Masonic books, speeches,
and journalism), and not many Masons will understand what is meant when it
is said that all Masons "meet upon the level.”

It is easiest to
approach the subject by a process of elimination. By equality we cannot mean
that all men are equal in the original endowment of their nature.

48 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

There are big men and
little men, and we all know that in many cases a big man "was born that
way," and that a little man cannot become big by ever so much effort. Why
this is so is a mystery, and appears to be (though it doubtless is not) a
fundamental injustice in the very structure of the universe. I had this
brought to mind recently while reading the third volume of "The History of
the United States" by James Ford Rhodes, wherein he carries through several
pages a comparison of Lincoln and McClellan. McClellan was spiteful,
vainglorious, and ill-mannered; he was a good organiser, but he did not have
the courage which naturally belongs to a general. He treated the President
with rudeness, and wrote to his (McClellan's) wife in such strains of pride
as made her believe the fate of the Union depended on him alone. Lincoln was
a great incarnation of human power, and could be magnanimous, meek, and
patient for that very reason. In contrasting the two men one cannot help but
believe that the sundering difference was a matter of original nature, and
that at birth Lincoln was more of a human being than McClellan. An
inequality like that, one that goes. down to the roots of being, is one that
is hard to reconcile with our sense of the evenhanded justice of Nature. But
the fact is there, and it is everywhere, for no two men have the same
aboriginal endowments, let abstract theorists say what they may.

We cannot say that men
are equal in nature: neither can we say that they are equal, or can be
equal, in opportunity. That may possibly happen in small circles all the
members of which live under the same conditions, as in the case of a family,
or a neighbourhood, but it is untrue of the race when viewed in the large.
The Australian Bushmen, to take an extreme example, never can have the
opportunities for education, for wealth, for pleasure, fame, what not, as
are enjoyed by the average American
"WE MEET UPON THE LEVEL"
49

youth. Men should have equal
opportunities, but they do not have them. They never can have them because
the earth itself varies too much over its surface ever to make it possible
for all men everywhere to be born into equal opportunities for the goods of
life.

Men are not born equal
in abilities. On this it is not needful to say much because that kind of
inequality confronts us everywhere. It used to be the fashion among
theorists to teach that if only all men could receive the same education and
have the same chances at wealth, and live under equal laws, and be freed
from unnatural restrictions, all would come up to the same average. Horace
Mann firmly believed that if all the boys and girls of this nation could get
into college all of them would turn out scholars, proficient in Greek,
Latin, and the arts. But those who have had any experience with boys and
girls in college know that nothing is more certain and unvarying than
differences of ability. One student, no matter how hard he tries, cannot
master the subjects; another seems to understand them by nature.

In the last place—there
is no need further to multiply instances—there can be no such thing as
social equality, if by that term one means social uniformity. Social classes
there are, and always will be, because social needs and instincts are so
various. If a social class (I use the word in its largest sense) is based on
caste, or aristocratic privilege, or any other kind of special privilege,
then it is an evil. But there are many social classes that are based not on
the principle of the superiority of one group of persons to another but upon
the fact of difference among men. I shall use a very homely example. In a
small town a group of fifty persons organise themselves into a literary
club, and in the activities of such a club meet each other socially, get
acquainted with each other, and all share in the common enjoyment of
literary
50 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

art. Let us suppose, for clearness of
illustration, that admittance to this club rests purely on the desire to
share in the study of literature. It is plain that there will be a great
number of persons in the community who will never desire membership, because
in every community there are so many who, out of a lack of nature, care
nothing for literature. This example, as I said above, is of trivial
character in itself, but it may serve to remind us of how many social
gradations, classes, cliques, clubs, etc., there are everywhere which rest
not on any fact of superiority but upon the fact of the difference of
interests, tastes, and aims among people. As long as such differences exist
(which will probably be as long as there is a human race) there will never
come a time when such social groupings will vanish away, and there will
consequently never come a time when all men will enjoy the same social
advantages. To work for the advent of such a social state, as the Communists
have ever done (Owen, Fourier, St. Simon, etc.) is to strive for the
impossible. Such social communism is not equality in any possible sense.

What, then, is Equality?
Instead of attempting any exhaustive definition, I shall make a
generalisation concerning it, and then trust to a series of examples to do
the defining for me. The statement is as follows: Every man is entitled to
the right, equal to the right enjoyed by other men, to the unhindered and
normal functionings of his own nature.

Sir Isaac Newton had a
great intellect, one of the very greatest, all historians agree, that has
ever appeared on the earth. My intellect cannot in any sense be spoken of as
equal to his. Nevertheless I claim the same right to use my intellect, such
as it is, that he enjoyed; and he, if he were living, would have no right
whatsoever, merely because of his own superiority, to deny me the preroga
"WE MEET UPON THE LEVEL"
51

tives of thought. For him to do so,
and for me to submit to such abasement would be a crime against nature. The
right to use the mind is for all men everywhere and always the same right,
whatever may be the inequalities of mental ability. Whenever this right is
interfered with, or controlled in the interests of some clique or class, as
has often happened, society suffers, individuals suffer, and a wrong is done
that merits condign punishment.

The same thing holds
good of practical ability. William Morris had an extraordinarily versatile
genius. He could weave tapestry, carve wood, paint pictures, write poetry,
make speeches, model in clay, print books, and a score of things beside, and
do all with rare skill. There are few of us who could claim any such
ability, but even so, we have the same right to use our powers, such as they
are, that Morris had to use his. In that fundamental and all-important
regard, William Morris was no better than the awkwardest apprentice in his
workshops.

Every one of us is
social by nature, and nearly every one of us appreciates the rare privilege
of friendship. But some men seem to have a genius for friendship. Theodore
Watts-Dunton, comparatively unknown himself, was the centre of a circle of
friends almost every one of whom became famous in some line. Our own Charles
Eliot Norton, than whom no rarer spirit has ever dwelt in this land,
numbered among his close friends such men as Ruskin, Carlyle, Emerson,
Lowell, George William Curtis, Charles Darwin, Leslie Stephen, and nobody
knows how many more such outstanding personalities. You and I may number our
friends on the fingers of one hand, and they may be the humblest imaginable
so far as attainments go, but for all that each of us has the right to
friends, the same right as that enjoyed by Watts-Dunton and Eliot Norton.
Such a statement may

52 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

seem banal enough, but there are
places in the world now, and have been many places in the past, where social
life has been so rigidly classified and graded that custom and aristocratic
dictation have made impossible to all but a few the unhindered exercise of
so fundamental a thing in human nature as the cultivation of friendship.

The right of human
equality has been oftenest violated, it seems, in religion, the one field in
which men should enjoy the largest measure of it. What a tale of unrightful
usurpation, tyranny, and aristocracy has been the history of the world's
religions! One no sooner thinks of the matter than examples flock to the
mind in unmanageable numbers. During one great period of their history the
Egyptian people were entirely abased beneath the feet of a priestly
hierarchy that crushed out in the masses the very instincts of worship, or
made use of that instinct for the advantage of their own class. After Buddha
had unveiled to the eyes of his people the sacredness of each individual
soul before the ineffable and eternal realities of the universe, the
Brahmans came back with their castes and their engines of oppression and the
people lost once again all uses of their own religious faculties. Jesus came
forth to make each man know himself as a son of God, bound together in the
great circle of brethren, but after time went on, and the priestly leaven
had its opportunities to work, it required a Lutheran revolution to restore
to Christians the "liberty of a Christian man." The old lady across the
street, who reads her Bible morning and evening, who arises and retires with
prayer, and who lives in her humble and unlearned way such a religious life
as she is capable of conceiving of, may be worlds removed in religious
faculty from a Buddha, a Jesus, a Luther: but she is as much entitled as
they to think her poor religious thoughts and to lead her life of little
pieties.

"WE MEET UPON THE LEVEL"
53

From this
it will be seen that equality is not a utopian theory which men have dreamed
as being desirable in this harsh world. Far from it! Equality is a necessity
of our nature, without which we live mutilated unhappy lives. It is a
necessity, when properly understood, like food, clothing, and shelter. He
who robs men of that equality which Nature ordains is committing a crime
against human beings. He does something that must necessarily be followed by
tragic consequences, as is true of the violation of any other condition made
necessary by Nature herself. It is because of this that the doctrine is not
a mere plaything for erudites but a pressing problem for every man, however
busy he may be.

"But," some reader may
here rightfully interject, "that is all very good, and nobody will deny that
equality is a right, but what about equality as a fact? One needs only look
about him to see that even the simple and basic equality which you have
described is not being enjoyed by the masses of people to any degree at all
!”

"True enough," I should
reply, "but you have merely stated the complementary fact (complementary,
that is, to what I have hitherto said) that equality is a task as well as a
right, and it is precisely because equality is a right that it is for us all
a task." By that I mean, that if we are clear in our mind that every man is
justly entitled to a reasonable measure of equality then it is for us all,
insofar as we are good Masons and citizens, to see that every man gets it.
To see that every man gets it is precisely one of the great missions in
which Masonry is engaged.

Let us consider a moment
equality before the law. There was a time in England when only the rich had
access to the protection of the "law" at all, and when the priesthood had
its own courts where priest administered the law to priest. Poor men were
arrested with
54 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

out warrant; sentenced without being
tried; and often executed without evidence. It all depended upon the whim of
the earl, or the baron, or bishop, or king, or what-not. But very gradually
there was developed in England a genuine equality before the law, as may be
traced through the following important watermarks of the evolution of the
freedom of English people: 1. Magna Charta; 2. The petition of Rights, 1628;
3. Habeas Corpus, 1679. In our Colonial days these gains made by the people
of England naturally were enjoyed by the early settlers, and they at last,
after writing a Declaration of Independence, incorporated basic equality
before the law in the Constitution, and in the first seven or eight
amendments thereto.

But, as may be expected,
equality before the law is not yet a realised fact for all. The lawyer for a
great corporation told me that his employers were so powerful through their
wealth that he would guarantee to keep any case indefinitely in the courts,
and thus wear out any adversary, however just might be that man's claims.
"The law's delays," is often a sad calamity for a poor man. In my own old
home community I knew of two men whose opposite experiences illustrate this
unfortunate fact. One was the president of a great corporation who in a
federal court was found guilty on ten serious counts, but being a
corporation president, and very wealthy, and very prominent, he paid not a
cent of fine and did not spend a day in jail. When he returned to his home
city he was met at the depot by a band and a long procession. The other man
about whom I knew stole a coil of copper wire from a car-barn in the same
city and served two years in the penitentiary for so doing! The reader knows
of such cases, I have no doubt, and so does everybody. But this is only to
say that any right which humanity gains is always imperfectly held and must
ever be more and more
"WE MEET UPON THE LEVEL"
55

completely won, and that every right
must evermore be carefully guarded, for the whole tendency of human society,
if men relax their vigilance, is to slide backwards. Equality before the law
as we now enjoy it in this country is found nowhere else in the world save
in England, France, and a few other nations. In the great portion of the
world it is a thing unknown. If that equality is not yet a perfect thing,
the challenge is to us; it is in no sense a proof that the doctrine of
equality is an impossible thing.

What holds true of
equality before the law holds true of equality in every right and just
sense. And we Masons are under a peculiar obligation to devote ourselves to
the task of making equality everywhere a fact. For equality is one of our
central tenets. The Fraternity never permits us to forget that; the ritual
impresses it upon the candidate in every way; the lodge is so organised that
every one "meets upon the level." The candidate is made to feel that without
the assistance of his fellows he is a poor, naked, blind, destitute thing
without hope: the member is made to know that every Mason has Masonic rights
equal to every other Mason, and pays the same dues, enters on the same
conditions, holds office on the same terms, and shares equally with all
others the burdens and obligations of the Order.

Chapter VI

FREEMASONRY IS THE CHAMPION OF LIBERTY

Lord Acton,
who was one of the most learned men of all times, one of the greatest
scholars of the last century, and who left behind him as his monument the
great Cambridge Modern History, had as his life work the task of writing a
History of Liberty. On this he toiled for years, with two large houses full
of books, with all manner of original materials in several languages, until
he had accumulated great heaps of data. But alas! he never arrived at the
point where he felt that he knew enough about liberty to write its history!
and he died with all his knowledge in him, his magnum opus unwritten! Such
an experience reminds us what a subject we have before us in the present
paper; how difficult it is to deal with; how little has as yet been really
thought out about it; how scanty are men's experiences of it; and
consequently how modest must be our own attempts in the present connection.

On the surface it might
appear to some that Masonry in itself has not much liberty to give its own
children. The initiate finds himself forced to rehearse a ritual no single
syllable of which he can change; he is in the hands of a group of men who
govern him and his fellow members; the subordinate lodge, as its very name
implies, must adjust itself to the will of Grand Lodge: and the whole field
covered by the Fraternity is hedged about by a series of Landmarks which,
like the laws of the Medes and the Persians, change not. Where the
individual finds

58

FREEMASONRY THE CHAMPION OF
LIBERTY 57

himself so circumscribed, and
compelled to move in so narrow a channel, how, say many, can he be said to
have liberty?

Those who ask such a
question betray the misunderstanding under which so many labour as regards
what is and what is not liberty. They have a vague notion as to what it is,
and they dimly feel that in some way there isn't much liberty to be had
anywhere, either in institutions or in government, or in the way the world
is made.

Liberty is not merely
freedom from restraint. How many there are who think it to be so! A friend
who has spent many years in working among immigrants told me that hordes of
aliens come in from southeastern Europe, and used to come in from Russia,
who have been told over and over that in America there are no laws, no
governments, no penitentiaries and fines, and that here every man may do as
he pleases with no other man to hinder. Finding themselves so completely
disillusioned when they discover the real truth about this nation, they grow
sullen and rebellious, consider themselves cheated, and fall an easy victim
to the fallacies of anarchy. Such ideas of liberty are born of fancy, for
there is no part of the human race anywhere that does have, or ever has had,
any experience of such a state. On the contrary every one of us knows from
his own experiences that liberty and restraint go together and are in no
sense necessarily opposed one to the other. In a family there is all manner
of restraint needed, not only for the children but for the parents as well,
who are unable to do a hundred things because there are children to care for
at home; but even so, father, mother, and the children may all enjoy to the
utmost the fullest family liberty. And we know that it is the same with a
man's work. If he is running a farm he is compelled to remain at his post to
care for his stock often when he would prefer to be
58 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

elsewhere; that he must be up with
the sun, and do a certain amount of ploughing, harrowing, planting,
harvesting, and what not, even though his fancies would lead him to do
something very different. He has restraints enough, nevertheless he enjoys
on his farm absolute liberty of toil, for the two things go together. And so
it is in every kind of labour, and in every other sphere in which men live;
always there are the fences about one, and the sign set up, "Thus far shalt
thou go but no farther," but that does not destroy liberty, which is a very
different thing than freedom from restraint.

Nor is liberty the same
as a go-as-you-please individualism. A large and powerful group of men in
the last century taught that all things that check the individual are wrong,
and that the full enjoyment of life comes only when the individual can
consider himself a separate entity cut off from other individuals whom he is
not to hinder and who are not to hinder him. The state is to have no right
to interfere with the lives of men in any way, shape or form. Herbert
Spencer, who may be considered typical of this school of thought, resented
it when the state interposed to regulate education; when it undertook to
levy income taxes and to direct business developments; he was bitter even
against the governmental building of highroads which he believed should be
left to the citizens in each given community. It may be true that such a
conception of individualism would accord well with liberty, and it might be
desirable, but unfortunately the experience of the nations has shown it
utterly impossible of operation; it is not in harmony with the way men are
made. Human nature is against it. For each individual man is by his very
nature a social being who can no more be cut off from the social
organisation than a leaf can be safely cut from the branch of the parent
tree. There are some things that we can do separately
FREEMASONRY THE CHAMPION OF LIBERTY
59

as private souls; there are other
equally important things that we can do only as citizens of a community, as
members of a social order. What would have become of us, to cite one
example, if it had been left to individual enterprise to manage the late
war? In many, many cases the individual, for his own joy and welfare, must
be held to his place in the social organism and made to perform his
functions there.

Closely akin to the
philosophical doctrine of individualism preached by Spencer are the theories
of the "laissez faire" school of economics which played so large a part in
the history of the nineteenth century. The members of this school believed
that the business relations of men are governed by certain "economic laws"
which operate in the same way as, and are as unchangeable as, the so-called
laws of nature. Men must be left alone, was their cry, and not tampered
with; hands off, and business will run itself; the world will be fed,
clothed, and housed as automatically as the sun rises and sets. The chief of
these "economic laws" was believed to be unfettered competition: indeed,
competition was set up as such an important god that when, during the Irish
famine in 1825 it was proposed to organise relief in England and ship corn
to the starving millions many "economists" fought the project on the ground
that the situation would be cared for by the normal functionings of the law
of supply and demand and that nobody had any right to divert ships from the
normal channels of trade. The theories of the "laissez faire" school seem
quaint and far off to one at this date, for their whole scheme of thought
has gone by the board, and that for a hundred reasons, one of which is that
there are in economic life no such "laws" as those that operate in nature,
and that such laws as do operate in economics are of the same kind as those
that we find in all forms of human association;
60 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

they are full of the action of men's
wills, and desires, and deliberate planning. "To let things alone," to let
things drift, does not mean that things will be cared for by automatic
natural laws, but that the most predatory individuals in the community will
use such a state as an opportunity to rob their fellows right and left. In
our own government we have learned that business, in all its forms, is
something that must be regulated like all other human activities, and that
any ideal of liberty which assumes itself to consist of an absence of
regulation is a false ideal.

All these various false
notions of liberty have in common one thought, that it is a desirable thing
to leave each individual to himself, uncontrolled by others; to let him be
an entity in a void. Such a thought is false and impossible. Man is by his
very structure a social being, and therefore one that must live, for the
sake of his own happiness as much as for the sake of the happiness of
others, ringed about by all manner of governing forces and influence.

What then is Liberty?

In my own conception of
it liberty means that each man of us is to enjoy unhindered the full
exercise of the normal functions and powers of his nature. This is an
entirely different conception than that implied in the no-restraint theory,
because man's nature cannot function normally in a void, or in a condition
of pure individualism: the functions and powers of a man's nature, when
rightly understood, imply and demand a social life, a community of lives in
which each individual finds his true happiness in his right relations to
other human beings. It will be best to permit this conception to define
itself through a series of examples and illustrations.

One of the most
important powers of a man's nature is
FREEMASONRY THE CHAMPION OF LIBERTY
61

his mind. If the man is to be happy,
if his nature is to be healthy and un-mutilated, he must be permitted to
live in a social order where he has absolute right to use that mind
unhindered by anything or anybody. The mind is so made that any interference
with its normal functioning brings distress to the individual and disorder
to human society. Every attempt to dictate to men how they shall use their
minds has proved to be disastrous, as history so abundantly proves. One may
recall Prince Metternich and the Peace of Vienna in 1815 when the masters of
Europe ordained what men should think, speak, and read. That regime did not
bring the uniformity of thought and peace of life which the masters
expected; it brought quite the contrary, a fermentation of embittered men
and women which led finally to the outbursts of 1848. It is a peculiar agony
to have one's very brain in chains: men must rebel or at last surrender, to
sink in the apathy and listlessness of the peasant and the serf.

In what does liberty of
mind consist? In the right to use it normally, for the health and the good
of all. It does not mean that an individual is free to make use of his mind
without restraint or hindrance of any kind. The man who uses his intellect
to perpetrate a fraud should be held in leash; if he exercises it in the
manufacture and dissemination of lies it is time that he feel that he is not
the only man who lives in the world. When a man is given the liberty of
thought it is not in order that he may indulge in intellectual license or
anarchy, for that is the absence of thought; he is set free in order that he
may think according to those laws of thought that are inherent in the mind
itself. Therefore freedom of thought does not lead to anarchy and confusion
but to harmony, for all facts exist in the system of nature,
62 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

and all truth is in harmony with
itself. When we Masons contend for the right of the free intellect we are
contending for the right and healthful use of the intellect, the normal use
of it; not for mere caprice.

So also with the right
to choose one's own work, which is also essential to a state of liberty.
During the last centuries of the Roman Empire the collegiate system (the
collegia were a kind of craft union) had hardened to such rigidity that what
a man's father had done that also must he do; he was not even free to leave
his own village without permission; he existed in a kind of industrial
slavery.

The same thing recurred,
or almost the same thing, at the end of the guild system in England: men had
at last to break the system because, it was destroying the right of free
work. In India, or in certain parts of it, the caste system `functions in
the same manner to deprive the individual of the right to choose his own
form of labour.

This right also exists
in the very structure of man's nature. Each of us has his own "bent," and
prefers his own "line." One man loves manual toil; another would be a
musician; a third finds himself made to be a scholar. So goes it with all.
This urge within one's nature toward a certain form of labour is as
essential to manhood as the freedom of thought, and it is always as
disastrous to human happiness when the freedom to work is denied as it is
when men are deprived of freedom of mind. In any social order rightly
conceived the liberty of every man to work as he chooses is essential.

But this does not mean
that a man can exercise his desire unrestrained. It does not mean that an
individual can do what he pleases as if he were alone in a void. It means
that the right to work, like all other rights, is shaped by the structure of
human nature, and by the
FREEMASONRY THE CHAMPION OF LIBERTY
63

necessities of society. If a given
form of business proves destructive of social order, such for example as the
business of war, or opium smuggling, or piracy, etc., then the man's right
ceases. What we all should strive to uphold is the normal exercise of such
rights.

As much may be said of
the right of free worship, or liberty of religion. Religion is, it seems, an
integral part of nature, therefore it must have healthy development else it
leads to ills and to unhappiness. Interference with religious liberty, the
long and dark attempts to dictate to men what and how they shall worship,
has always bred misery and degradation. A normal religiousness makes for the
welfare of a man's life, and he therefore has a right to the free and normal
exercise of it.

The same may be said of
all the other functions and powers of our nature. We have an inherent right
to choose our friends; to marry whom we would; to have a voice in our own
government; to live where and when we desire; etc., etc. In all the possible
forms which liberty may take we find this same truth, that this liberty is
for the sake of the healthful exercise of human nature, so that a man can be
happy while he lives, and that any interference with the normal functionings
of the same leads to unhappiness, to the mutilation of nature, and is
therefore a thing to be opposed and destroyed. And all this does not lead to
individualism, to atomism, to any form of license, or to anarchy as many
conservative minds fear, because if the functions of man's nature are
rightly exercised, exercised according to human nature itself, freedom will
not lead to conflict among men, but rather to unity and harmony. The very
way in which a man is made causes him to be a part of nature, a part of
society, and in constant relationship with God. Any liberty which divorces
him from nature, or makes him
64 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

an anti-social being, or causes him
to violate the deep laws of his own spirit, is not real liberty at all, but
its counterfeit.

Liberty, it follows from
all that has been heretofore said, is therefore not a mere gift which the
powers that be may confer on a man at their pleasure: it is called for by
the very structure of man. It is something necessary, something demanded by
the nature of things. Therefore it is, as our Declaration of Independence
defined it, a natural right. It is a right that existed before governments
came into being; nay, governments exist in order to make it possible, and to
preserve it inviolate. For law, rightly understood, exists in order that
liberty may be unharmed.

When We have reached
this conception we can no longer believe that such a thing can be a mere
matter of simple instinct to any individual which he will straightway begin
rightly to exercise the moment he is set loose to do as he pleases. Liberty,
just because it is so deep and many-sided a thing, and sends so many roots
down into human nature and so many ramifications out into human society, is
a thing that must be learned. The baby chick has an instinct which teaches
it how to eat the moment it steps out of the shell; some have held the
theory that man has a similar instinct for liberty which he will exercise if
only priests, kings, and aristocrats will let him be. Such a notion is a
fallacy. We each one have the right to be free; but to be indeed free, that
means a right education for the purpose. Freedom as a right exists in every
man: freedom as a fact exists only in those natures which have prepared
themselves for it.

From one point of view
the whole of Masonry exists in order to teach men how to make right use of
their prerogatives of freedom. The candidate is made to feel
FREEMASONRY THE CHAMPION OF LIBERTY
65

that he is not a separate living atom
living and dying unto himself, but that he is by nature a part of a great
brotherhood of men and women; he is taught that until he can exercise the
powers of maturity he must, like all good apprentices, be content to have
others lead him; he made to understand that mature life is not his at a
grasp but that he lives in darkness concerning it until he has gone the
whole road of preparation; he is shown that the hoodwink cannot be removed
until he is duly obligated to his fellows and taught his duties; he is made
to understand that unless he is able to walk alone and exercise his rights
normally a cable-tow of external authority is needed to hold him in place,
and that such a cable-tow must remain about him until he is able to stand on
his own feet; he is made to understand the ever present need of light, and
that unless he is always seeking it, darkness will settle upon him, and
darkness means unhappiness; and not until he is instructed how to be the
absolute master of himself is he raised from the dead level of his slavery
to the living perpendicular of a free man.

In its mysteries of
initiation Freemasonry reveals itself to its adepts, under one of its
aspects at least, as the preparation for the liberty of the mind, of the
body, of the soul, of manhood and womanhood. Its part out in the great world
among other powers and institutions also reveals it as the champion of
liberty in all its forms and under all its veils. And it has ever contended
for liberty because it has struggled to win for men life, more life, and
life more abundantly. That is its mission. And because man needs liberty in
order richly to live, it has striven to win liberty in all its forms. During
the last hundred years Masonry has not been absent from one single struggle
for civil, or political, or religious liberty.

When men have sought to
throw off the yoke of unlawful
66 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

or cruel rulers it has lent them its
aid. When they have prayed and bled to be relieved of the yoke of spiritual
and religious bondage it has given them of its strength and made their war
its own. Until man has won for himself all those freedoms wherein his life
consists it will ever be so, because Masonry exists in order that we all may
live more happily, more completely, more abundantly.

Chapter VII

FREEMASONRY AND THE IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY

When in the
course of human events the mass of people living in a nation learn how to
live together as a people, and devise means whereby to secure for themselves
their rights as a people, and contrive political machinery and social
institutions of such character as exist by and for the whole mass of
individuals, that land may be said to be a democracy; for democracy may be
described as a state of society in which the people as a whole control in
their own collective interest the institutions and forces of the nation. No
nation becomes democratic by first thinking out a theory of what democracy
is and then, as an architect follows a blueprint, deliberately setting out
to put the theory into practice; but they arrive at democracy very gradually
and naturally, though not always without strife, by securing control of one
thing and of another until they have control of everything, and then manage
everything so as to satisfy the needs and desires of the people as a whole.

Some nations long for
democracy, others are on the way to democracy, and others still may be said
to possess it, albeit in no nation has it as yet become perfect. The most
conspicuous among these last is, perhaps, our own country. It was the first
great nation to adopt democracy whole-heartedly, and it has from the first
never swerved from the path that leads to a more and more complete control
of everything by the people themselves and in their own interests. Whether
one should describe

67

68 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

as democratic a nation that merely
longs for it, or whether the name should be exclusively applied only to
those nations which may be truly said already to possess it, must be left to
the individual's opinion to decide. The use of words is one thing, facts are
another. The organisation of public life by and for the public—that is what
we Americans believe in with all our hearts, unless we are renegades, and
that is what we American Masons, with an equal whole-heartedness, believe
the Masonic Fraternity to stand for.

Now it is self-evident
that there may be many means whereby the public as a public may come into
control of its own social forces and institutions. How democracy is to be
won, and preserved is a question of political and social machinery, and that
is a matter that cannot concern us here because it belongs to politics.
Suffice it to say that it is possible for the people directly to manage
their own institutions, as in some cities the price of a street car ride is
determined by popular ballot, which is usually described as "direct
democracy," and that it is also possible for the people to control their own
institutions through elected representatives, as is usually done among us,
which method is called the "republican" or "representative" system. In our
own nation we mix up the two methods very much, and the United States might
be properly described as a democracy in the form of a republic.

The reader may have been
wondering why it should be necessary to include among these chapters a paper
on democracy when the book includes two other papers on equality and liberty
respectively. Well, it may be said in reply that while democracy includes
equality and liberty, equality and liberty may exist without democracy, and
that in our nation, and also I believe in our Fraternity, we strive for all
three together. Liberty means that
FREEMASONRY AND IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY
69

a man is free to develop and use the
functions of his own nature without undue interference from others. Equality
means that one man has the same fundamental nature as another man, and
should have the same privileges to live; but it has often happened that a
social structure has existed in which only a minority of the people have
been permitted to enjoy either liberty or equality. In Athens, for example,
a fraction of the populace was composed of citizens enjoying liberty while
the great bulk of them were slaves, and in many parts of India, to cite an
example of the other kind, all the individuals enjoy liberty but, owing to a
very hard-and-fast caste system, they do not have equality. The democrat
(this must not be confused with a member of the political party which
employs that name) believes that liberty is a good thing for each individual
and that therefore a state should guarantee it to all, and he also thinks
that the state should provide genuine equality for all. A state in which all
the social forces and values are controlled by and for all the people, and
which is so organised at the same time as to guarantee for all liberty and
equality, may be thought of as the ideal toward which all true democrats are
working. If it be true, as I think it is true, that Freemasonry is one of
the mightiest forces working in that direction, we may all feel that no
institution could be of more value to our nation than Freemasonry.

We must be careful not
to conceive of democracy as being merely political. I should advance this as
a criticism of James Bryce's definition in his recent treatise, already seen
to be a great work, called "Modern Democracies." He says that "democracy
really means nothing more nor less than the rule of the whole people
expressing their sovereign will by their votes." That is clearly a merely
political definition. Democracy is often something besides a "rule": it may
be an expression of the
70 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

popular life} as in what we call
democratic art, like the "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman; and when it is a
rule it may be exercised in quite other ways than political, as when social
changes are brought about or prevented by the power of public opinion; and
also it often happens that the mere unconscious growth and changing of a
people may transform important conditions in a nation's life, Then, too, I
think one should quarrel with Viscount Bryce's definition in that it ignores
such things as social democracy, industrial democracy, and intellectual
democracy. By social democracy we mean that social customs and conditions
should be controlled and shaped by all the people in the interests of all
the people. By industrial democracy we mean that industry shall be
controlled by and in the interests of everybody; and by intellectual
democracy we mean that there shall be no mere caste of thinkers as there was
in Ancient Egypt but that everybody will use his brains and that science and
scholarship exist for all and by all. The organising of science and
scholarship in public schools which function under the control of the state
is an example of how the intellectual life may become genuinely democratic.
How all these things may be accomplished or perfected is a question of ways
and means and belongs to those discussions in which we strive to discover
what are the most perfect social mechanisms, and therefore do not come
within our present province.

It is wise for us to
learn to look at the facts themselves, and do our own thinking by means of
them, rather than to let ourselves be deceived by words. For oftentimes it
happens that a nation may call itself a democracy or a republic and yet have
not even a tithe of the reality for which these names stand. Mexico under
Diaz may have had a very stable government but it was not a democ
FREEMASONRY AND IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY
71

racy, though Diaz and his grandees
were careful to observe the formalities, and carried on "elections" every
once in a while. Diaz called himself a "President" but in reality was a
dictator. In England, on the other hand, there is a king and a royal house
but everybody knows that the English people are quite as democratic as we
are, because their great governing body is immediately responsible to the
people, and is elected directly by the people.

It may be safely said
that Freemasonry is about the most democratic institution in existence. On
its lodge floor men of all grades of rank, wealth and influence meet
together in absolute equality, so that Presidents of the United States have
sat on the side lines while some humble workman governed in the East. Its
members are elected by secret ballot; its officers are chosen by ballot
also; and it is governed by laws administered through representatives who
must, once a year, give an account of their trust to the body of the
membership. It is so organised that its responsibilities and privileges are
distributed among the whole membership so that all share equally.

The democratic nature of
the Craft is shown by its actual conduct in history during the past two
hundred years. It arose in England (I refer here to modern Speculative
Masonry as we now know it) when society in general hated and loathed the
idea of democracy, and when men were broken up into social classes of such
rigidity as really to constitute genuine castes; but in its lodges Masonry
gave to every man absolute freedom of thought and expression and it put into
practice those methods of popular rule which we have now in our government.
Since its reorganisation in 1717

it has always thrown its weight, or
at least with very few exceptions, if any, on the side of popular rule. I
had occasion re
72 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

cently to read every reference to
Freemasonry in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I was struck by the fact
again and again that the Fraternity received mention almost every time as
being one of the forces on the side of a revolt against tyranny in some
country, as, for example, in Spain and in Belgium. We know how that a great
many of the founders of our nation were active members of the Craft; how
that the Declaration of Independence has been freely described, even by the
profane, as a Masonic document; and how it can be accurately said that the
Constitution of the United States is Masonry put into political practice;
and we also know that Masons were very active in fomenting and carrying
through the American Revolution.

The teachings and
principles of Freemasonry can never be realised in any state of society save
a democratic one. How could there be equality for all in a nation ruled by a
class, or a caste, or a clique of bureaucrats, or a set of
multi-millionaires? How could liberty be guaranteed to every last man in a
nation that did not govern itself through laws that apply equally to all,
and are interpreted and executed by men chosen by the people and responsible
to the people? In any other kind of government liberty and equality may be
granted for a time as a privilege, but there is never any way of knowing, as
history itself so abundantly attests, when that privilege may be withdrawn.

One is reminded of
Masonry's great book, Albert Pike's "Morals and Dogma." Those who have
carefully read that wonderful work ("those" should include every Mason,
whether he be a member of the Scottish Rite Bodies or not) will recall how
that liberty and equality sound through its pages over and over like a
mighty bell, and how that the author interprets the whole of history as a
vast conflict between the forces that make for tyranny
FREEMASONRY AND IDEAL OF DEMOCRACY
73

and the forces that make for freedom.
It is often asked why Scottish Rite Masonry makes such headway in Latin
countries where Ancient Craft Masonry (the "Blue Lodge") stagnates: I
believe the reply to be this, that Albert Pike and his co-founders of the
Scottish Rite System organised a Masonry that may be readily translated into
a people's yearning for political freedom. They read in its mighty
palimpsest their own prayers for liberation; they find in it a power for
emancipation; it is an irresistible force for the overthrow of thrones and
dominions.

But it must not be
supposed that Freemasonry works for democracy only when it is engaged in
some actual struggle, as it was during our Revolutionary period. Its silent
and perpetual influences, quiet as the coming of the night, unostentatiously
prepare in every Mason's mind those thoughts and feelings which make toward
democracy. It has become a commonplace with political thinkers that
democracy cannot come to any people until they have prepared themselves for
it. Democracy is not a magic that acts independently of the citizenship; it
is a thing that people themselves do if it be done, and it cannot be unless
they learn how to do it, and until they desire it with a ceaseless desire.
Our great Order of more than two and one-half million members in this nation
exercises an immeasurable influence toward a full and complete democracy by
constantly instilling into its members those ideas and longings which
inwardly prepare them for the fullest measures of equality and liberty. As
the sun works so potently in the spring in developing the young seeds until
a luxuriant vegetation breaks forth, so does the mighty Fraternity that is
dedicated to Light throw its fructifying warmth about the mind and heart of
every one of its children. And it does this ceaselessly. It knows no
seasons: it has no winter.

74 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Democracy, I said, is
not a kind of magic that works whether or no. It is not an infallibility.
When the people govern themselves they do not escape mistakes nor are they
miraculously freed from weaknesses and evils. The theory of democracy is
that the people can learn to govern themselves only by governing themselves,
just as an individual learns by experience and experiments. Therefore though
the people, or let us say "we," may fail, time and again, that is no reason
for despairing of democracy.

Chapter VIII

MASONRY AND THE PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY

Our modern
industrial system dates back to 1789 in which year James 'Watt successfully
demonstrated the feasibility of using the power machine for industrial
purposes. Prior to that time almost all work, as the name "manufacture"
(which means "make by hand") itself indicates, was carried on by hand. Tools
were simple and inexpensive, and there was little necessity for great
factory buildings and no possibility of manufacturing cities such as are now
so familiar to us. The worker was closer to his work, and felt more interest
in it, and had more at stake in it, and often he himself purchased the raw
materials in which he worked, and owned the tools whereby he transformed raw
products into articles of commerce.

The introduction of the
steam engine, and other power machines, changed all that. The machine was
too expensive for the workman to own; it had to be housed in special
buildings (factories) designed for it; using such large quantities of stuff
and turning out such immense quantities of finished products, it was
necessary to devise the railroad in order to tend it. The dependence of one
kind of manufacturing upon another led manufacturers to herd together at
convenient centres and thus the industrial city came into existence. Things
could be made that were never made before, and a hitherto undreamed of
quantity of new wealth came into existence. Under this regime workmen could
no longer own their own

75

76 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

tools but became employes, selling
their labour in the market as a commodity. The machinery of production
passed into the hands of wealthy men, and as a consequence we have the
present divisions of society so familiar to us all: the group owning and
controlling the raw materials of production and the machinery of manufacture
and distribution; the group made up of industrial labourers; and the large
class of small merchants and professional men who cater to the needs of
these two groups.

It would be easy for any
economist (the writer makes no claim to any such dignity) to quarrel with
this picture, but the picture may stand for all that as a not inaccurate
description of the way things are, and of how they came so to be. At any
rate, it will serve to introduce us to the points worthy of discussion in
the present chapter.

Inasmuch as this great
industrial system produces such an immense quantity of wealth we very
naturally find a great deal of rather earnest rivalry among the various
industrial groups who, each one, strive to capture as large a share of it as
possible. Accordingly, we find capitalists, proprietors, merchants, etc.,
forming corporations, associations, and so forth, as a means of securing
their stake in the system; and at the same time labouring men form unions,
farmers have their granges, and professional and mercantile groups build up
all manner of systems, and all this in nearly every case in order to secure
or to protect a certain interest in the values being produced daily by the
industrial system.

This conflict of groups
due to their often conflicting group interests has come to be familiarly
known to us in these days as "the class struggle." Oftentimes men talk of
the class struggle as if it were a new invention, something only recently
come into existence, but as a
MASONRY AND PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY
77

matter of fact, as Professor Franklin
H. Giddings has been pointing out in a recent series of lectures, the class
struggle is as old as war, and has played in all history quite as
conspicuous a part as it does now though it was never before quite so much
to the front in discussion.

The various ways of
describing and explaining and interpreting this class struggle and the
forces that have brought it about, and of the manner in which its problems
may be solved, enable us to classify men in a large variety of different
groups of thought or theory. The Anarchist believes that the industrial
system is all wrong as it now exists because it has so powerfully
strengthened the hands of government, and therefore multiplied the
opportunities of political tyranny, a thing he dreads more than he dreads
the plague. The Communist, such as is now found so frequently in Russia,
would like to see the ownership of the raw materials, the machinery of
production, and of the systems of distributions vested in the hands of the
masses of the common people, without distinction of intellectual ability,
wealth, or any such thing.

The Socialist would like
to see the industrial system owned and managed by the people at large in
such wise that workers would produce only for use and not for profit, and
each worker would receive just what he produces, no more and no less. The
Guild Socialist would welcome a return of the old guilds whereby a given
industry would be managed jointly by all the members engaged in it, with
more emphasis on the social and artistic side of labour, and less emphasis
on the money side of it. The Syndicalist, of whom our own I. W. W.'s may be
taken as a type, would like to see all the members of each of the great
industries own that industry in such wise that all the industries could be
associated together in a general system, which general industrial system
would fulfil all the functions now fulfilled by our politi
78 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

cal governments. The Capitalist, or
the man who takes the position which may be thus described, believes that
the present system is the only fair and possible method of making the goods
needed by the world. The Christian Socialist believes that if the teachings
of Christianity were consistently applied to the industrial system it would
result in a Socialist state, but that the ordinary Socialistic methods of
arriving at such an end are quite wrong; in other words; he trusts in moral
suasion rather than in industrial war or the class struggle.

From another point of
view all these groups fall into only two groups, which may be described as
Revolutionary or Reformist. In the latter case a man believes that the
industrial system as it now exists is sane and sound but that there are
details and conditions in it here and there that badly need changing, and he
is in favour of making these reforms but refuses to touch the system as a
whole. On the other hand the revolutionary is not concerned in mere local
abuses or failures in the system: he is convinced that the system as a whole
is wrong, and he works to uproot the system entirely in order utterly to
destroy it so as to replace it by something entirely different.
Revolutionaries again could be divided into classes, were there any need in
the present instance, because some of them desire one kind of a system and
some another, and some believe that the change could be made in one manner
while others believe that it can only be made in other ways.

To illustrate. If a man
believes that coal miners do not receive adequate wages he may work to
increase their pay and would accordingly be classed as a reformer. If he
believed that it is utterly wrong for coal mines to be owned and managed by
individuals and for coal miners to be wage workers selling their labour as a
commodity, and if he strives to bring about a regime wherein coal
MASONRY AND PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY
79

mines will be owned in some social
way, he is a revolutionary. If he resorts to guns in order to bring this
change about he is in favour of violence: if he thinks he can bring it about
by peaceable means he will not believe in violence but will be a
revolutionary nevertheless. In that instance the Communist would say, Let us
all, without distinction, own and run the coal mines together. The
Syndicalist would say, Let the coal miners own and run the mines for their
own sakes. The Political Socialist would say, Let the people own the mines,
and let them through some kind of popularly controlled government own and
manage these mines, and let coal be produced as we need it, and nobody make
a profit out of it.

One might name a score
of other groups, such as the Single Taxers, the Land Nationalists, the Co-operationists,
etc., but there is no need to multiply instances, especially since this is
not an essay in economics but in Masonry. Masonry as such does not take
sides with any of these groups. Its members may be doubtless found among
them all, for in Europe there are many Masons who may belong to some one of
the various Socialist or other radical groups, and in this country there are
trade unionists, capitalists, etc., etc., everywhere in our lodges. But that
makes no difference to these men as Masons, because as Masons they thrust
these differences aside: also, as it is laid down in Masonic law, politics
and kindred subjects are not discussed in lodge. Therefore it is perfectly
plain that Masonry has nothing to do with these conflicting industrial and
political groups as such. But—and here is the whole point of the present
study—the Fraternity nevertheless has very much at stake in the present
industrial conflicts, for industry occupies so large a place in the
foreground of individual and social life, and exercises so potent an
influence over
80 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

everything we are or do, that the
fortunes of a great national Fraternity like ours are very much bound up
with the fortunes and issues of the industrial system.

Freemasonry strives to
make all men brethren, living amicably and happily together; if an
industrial system is such as to divide men into quarrelling factions,
sometimes making actual war on each other, it is manifest that the aims of
the Fraternity are defeated by the evils in the industrial system.
Freemasonry looks toward universal peace and international co-operation: if
industrial methods and interests, as exemplified in tariffs and large
foreign investments, drive nations apart and into some form of war, then
Freemasonry is thwarted. Freemasonry strives for equality, but if an
industrial regime is of such a nature as to divide society into castes and
cliques, the members of which look with jealousy and suspicion upon each
other, then it is clear that Freemasonry must suffer defeat. Whatever makes
impossible the realisation of the ideals of the Craft is in reality the
enemy of Masonry, and will be opposed by genuine and living Masonry just
insofar: whatever makes it possible for Masonic ideals to be realised, will
be supported and strengthened by Masonry.. The shortest path perhaps to a
very clear comprehension of this whole position may be to express in one
simple sentence the gist of the whole matter:: In any discussion of the
philosophy of industry Freemasonry, if it remain true to its own philosophy,
must take the position that industry exists for the sake of man, and must be
so managed as to make for the welfare of man. What man is, and what man
needs, and what will make it possible for man to live a normal and happy
life, that is the criterion by which an industrial system is to be judged.

If we men and women are
to remain alive, and if we
MASONRY AND PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY
81

are to live lives of reasonable
happiness, then certain things are necessary to us, such as food, clothing,
fuel, houses, education, amusement, and all that. Industry is the method
which we have devised whereby these wants and needs may be satisfied. If at
any point, or in any moment, the industrial system is failing to satisfy
these needs then that industrial system is a failure and must be reorganised.
I have to work in order to live, but if no work is to be had, something is
radically and dangerously wrong. I need clothing, but if, whatever be my
efforts, I cannot get clothing, I am forced to rebel against the way things
are. I have to find food in order to remain alive, but if there is no food
to be had, it is manifest that there is a breakdown somewhere. To say that
an industrial system is a thing that has come about through some mechanical
process of nature, like the fall of rain, and that therefore we must
passively endure its evils as well as enjoy its goods, is a very foolish way
of thinking, because an industrial system is a very human thing, a thing we
have brought into existence, a thing over which we always have, if we will
but exercise it, a great deal of control. This, however, is not to imply
that the present system is wrong; far from it; the point I make is that the
one possible criterion whereby to test a system is the question, How
successfully does it minister to human needs? The question as to the success
or shortcomings of the system now at work is quite irrelevant in the present
connection, and must be left to the economists and the industrial experts.

In connection with the
above it must also be noted that one should not make impossible demands of
an industrial system, as is too often the fashion of zealous but
inexperienced reformers. There are many things in nature that cannot be
changed, and we must adjust our industrial systems to those things., I may
not like to
82 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

mine coal in the damp galleries
underground, but that is where coal is to be found, so I must make the best
of it. I may not enjoy living in the far north where the. winters are so
long and cold, but if I am to have pine lumber, that is where I must go to
get it. The sea is too often a damp and cheerless place on which to live,
but if I need fish I must go to sea to get them. Many of the conditions
under which we have to work may be uncomfortable and even dangerous, but
such conditions must not be charged up against the industrial system if
these things cannot be changed. Also, it should be remembered that there is
no magic in industry: if a given quantity of goods is to be produced, then a
certain amount of work is required to produce it, and that means that men
will be compelled to work so many hours, so that it may sometimes happen
that a work day will have to be long. And there is a limit to the
possibilities of tools, instruments, and inventions, so that often it will
necessarily be a hard and dangerous thing to do certain kinds of work, no
matter how much improvement there may be by way of inventive genius. This is
only another way of saying that while we insist that a given industrial
system must satisfy the needs of human beings in a satisfactory manner we
must take care not to frame that requirement in such wise as to make it
impossible of realisation: the fixed conditions of nature must be taken into
consideration, the limitations of devices and tools, and the limitations in
human power and human wisdom.

Freemasonry is wedded to
high ideals, and insistent on lofty demands, but even so it is unwise on the
part of Masons to suppose that therefore it has any right to expect any
sudden millennium. It does have a right, however, to ask that this world be
made and kept a human world, in which men can live together as brothers and
it should insist that the manner in which we make
MASONRY AND PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY
83

and distribute the goods of life
should be of such a character as will make possible the realisation of those
fine and human goals toward which it makes its way. For Masonry is itself a
living organism and cannot live in a hostile environment.

In American Freemasonry
we cannot discuss such things in our lodges, and it is probable that Masons
will very seldom as Masons care to discuss such matters outside of lodges.
Be that as it may, if we are going to take our task seriously, and if we are
sincerely in earnest to make right relations and brotherhood prevail we
should all as individuals think out our industrial problems from the point
of view of the Craft's own purposes and ideals. Nothing presses more closely
upon us in these days, nothing is more fraught with the potentialities of
great change, and nothing will do more to reshape the world in which
Freemasonry, like every other institution, must abide, than our industrial
system and the burning problems which now beat about it. The Craft must find
its own way through all this, and adjust itself to it, and do its own right
part in it: how that can be, and when, and where, and to what results, all
that is the problem of the Masonic philosophy of industry, a thing not yet
born, but which must be born sooner or later.

Chapter IX

WHAT IS MEANT BY THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN

Often we
hear it said by zealous reformers that we men must learn to be social
beings, that individualism, egoism, and all such creeds are vicious in their
effects, and that the socialising of life will bring in an era of which
William Morris dreamed when he wrote that "brotherhood is heaven, the lack
of brotherhood is hell." (Or did he used the word "fellowship"? It matters
not.) Admirable as is the spirit and intent of these reformers a fallacy
lies at the heart of their theory. We men are already social beings: we were
born that way. To tell us that we trust become social is like telling the
fishes to live in the water.

When a human babe is
born it finds itself from the first in the midst of a family, and bound by
indissoluble ties to father, mother, brother, and sister. After the child
grows up a little, it discovers itself to have neighbours all about it. When
school years come he learns that there are hundreds of other little people
like himself. After he has reached maturity he will marry and have a family
of his own. If he engages in an occupation he will find, almost without an
exception, that his daily work is made possible by the fact that there are
millions of other human beings to whom he is tied by all manner of common
interests.

The social nature of
man's world is reflected in the structure of his own body and mind. He is
possessed of the faculty of speech, which implies that there are

84

WHAT IS MEANT BY BROTHERHOOD OF MAN
85

others about him who have something
to communicate to him, and to whom he has something to communicate. Nearly
all his thinking has reference to his relations with others. When he sets
himself to the task of learning, most of his learning is about others, and
what they have been or done. The very nature of his private
self-consciousness, so the psychologists have learned, is such that if a
babe could grow up alone on a desert island it would be idiotic or insane,
no matter how healthy it might be in body. There is no way in which a man
can set out to become a social being, because he is already a social being,
and can never be anything else. Sociality is an organic fact, built into the
nature of man and of man's world, from which a man can no more escape than
he can escape from his skin. This fact, so it seems to me, is absolutely
essential to a right understanding of our subject.

These facts are to us so
self-evident that it seems impossible that any mature person could ever have
overlooked them: such however has been the case, and that with millions, for
this understanding of man as by nature a social being is one of the
achievements of modern thinking and scientific research. Once psychologists
assumed that man comes into existence as a lonely individual not united to
others, and that he gradually assumes social relations. Sociologists and
political economists were hard put to explain how a self-sufficient
individuality like man ever came to exist in communities. Rousseau advanced
the theory of the "Social Contract" as his explanation of the matter: Hobbes
brought forth another theory, and so on. Economists began their treatises
with an account of some hypothetical man living on a desert island and then
tried to show how that man's economic interests would lead him to form
industrial associations with others. The theologians placed before their
minds a pic
86 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

ture of an individual brought into
existence as a solitary unit, who had later to be brought somehow into
relation with God and with man. All such theorising, then or now—for it
still lives in some form or other with many men—is useless because it begins
by assuming that man is a solitary unit who must become social by his own
effort, whereas the truth is that a man is a social being already, and from
the very beginning.

This being true it is
easily seen that brotherhood is anything bit a merely sentimental
aspiration, which sensitive people can feel, and idealistic people can
strive after. On the contrary it is already a fact, as hard and real a fact
as the mother rock that makes the foundation of the mountains. To practise
brotherhood is to discover that we men are already brothers by nature and
that we can never be happy, or live in harmony with the laws and forces of
our own beings, until we learn to love each other, and to cultivate the
fraternal spirit. Men make a fatal mistake who suppose that we are really by
nature such beings as the wolf or the tiger, that we are kept from devouring
each other only by fear or custom, and that he who builds on raw egotism is
the only man who has Nature on his side. The only man who has Nature on his
side is he who builds on the fact that man is a social being, and therefore
that he can never be happy until he is in harmony' with his fellows.

Our present-day
psychologists, who are making such careful investigations of instincts, tell
us that the old idea that the first and most powerful force in a man is the
instinct of self-preservation, and that everything else must be secondary to
that, is a fearful fallacy. The truth is, so they aver, that the instincts
which look towards others, such as the instinct of parenthood, and the
instinct of sociality; are equally primitive and equally powerful, and that
the individual who stultifies those instincts will
WHAT IS MEANT BY BROTHERHOOD OF MAN
87

suffer in a hundred ways. Why is it
that a man who sees some person about to drown, and that one a total
stranger, will dart away from his own wife and children to leap into the
water, and there risk possible death? He doesn't reason or argue about the
matter, but acts on his instinct. The need to live a brotherly life is
written in the very scriptures of blood and tissue and bone, and he who
lives in opposition to that need will bring himself into an abnormal
condition in which his happiness will perish. This, so it seems to me, is
one of the first laws of brotherhood: it is no mere sentimental luxury, but
a necessity, and that in the same sense that bread and air and water are
necessities.

One may describe
brotherhood as the normal development of the social instincts, or he may
describe it as the wise, commonsense adjustment of one's self to one's
fellows. When one makes that wise and harmonious adjustment he makes it not
in response to some sentimental and pious wish that such things should be,
but in response to facts, to the way things really are with man's being.
Just as a man must be in right relation with the food he eats in order to
maintain health, so must he likewise be in right relation to his fellows if
he would live in happiness.

The man who understands
that brotherhood is one form of wisdom, and that it is demanded by the way
things really are in man's world, will not be troubled by sentimental
difficulties. Neither will he permit a few accidental private experiences to
sour him of all brotherly striving. It may be that my neighbour and I have
natures that are the antipodes of each other. What I admire he detests. What
he loves I hate. His temperament is antagonistic to mine. My vocation is one
that is opposed to his interests. We cannot hold social intercourse because
we discover too many antipathies. Such a thing
88 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

has nothing to do with brotherhood
when it is rightly understood. Brotherhood does not demand of us that we
privately like people who are obnoxious to us, or that others should like us
who find our company distasteful. Such things are in the domain of one's
intimate likes and dislikes and have to do with private friendship rather
than with brotherhood.

If I cannot like this
neighbour of mine I can be a brother to him nevertheless. I can give him
exact justice in all my dealings with him. I can always refuse to do evil to
him or speak evil of him. I can always maintain an attitude of good will to
him, and wish for him good fortune and happiness. I can ever stand ready to
help him to fulness of life, insofar as circumstances make that possible,
and I can always refuse to place any obstacles in his path. If I have a
difference with him I can differ with him as one man to another, honestly
and openly, without childish petulance. Such an attitude is the brotherly
spirit, and it can flourish where private friendship is impossible.

In Freemasonry we speak
of the bond which holds men together in such endeavour as the "Mystic Tie."
It is quite impossible to describe or to explain that tie. Those who know
what it is by experience, do not need it to be defined. There is something
of private friendship in it, for I believe that the majority of Masons have
a feeling towards brother Masons that they do not have towards outsiders;
and there is something of the purpose of co-operation in it. It is a mixture
of these two things, plus many other things.

However we may define
it, it is true that what we mean by that tie is really the hope of the
world. It is only as men are bound by it, whether they are Masons or not,
that the race can go on toward happiness. For after all is said and done the
world is a unity, and the
WHAT IS MEANT BY BROTHERHOOD OF MAN
89

race is one. That is the nature of
mankind and mankind can never be happy in living until all act in harmony
with their nature. Those who make sport of the aspirations towards racial
unity, internationalism, and all such endeavours to bind man closer to man,
and woman to woman, know not of what they speak, for, though they know it
not, it is they who are misguided by sentimental illusions, and imaginary
mirages, not the men who work to build life on the foundations on which life
was intended to rest.

In proportion as a man
understands brotherhood and acts in conformity with its demands, he will
always work for human unity. In his lodge he will not be a. dividing and
distracting force. In his community he will be a good citizen who knows that
the community has a right to demand many sacrifices on the part of its
children. He will uphold and maintain the principles of his country, and
oppose every influence that makes for its degradation and division. He will
everywhere use his efforts to break down racial antipathy, religious
differences, and class hatred. War, fanaticism, national jealousies and
unjust ambitions, the base intrigues of false statesmen, and the public
connivance in public vices, he will everywhere and always oppose. It is his
task as a true soldier of brotherhood.

Masonry has played a
great part in bringing about these conditions, and the part it is yet to
play "is more than the twelve labours of Hercules." It is a great thing for
the world that at a time when everywhere the spirit of strife and division
is so rampant there should be in existence a powerful international body of
men who preach and emphasise the need for unity, harmony and international
comity. I like to think that the Fraternity is a kind of great school in
which men learn brotherhood by practising it towards fellow Masons, be
90 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

cause he who begins by practising it
towards fellow Masons will come sooner or later to practise it everywhere.
And I like to think that Freemasonry is a world inside the world, and that
in Masonry those habits of fraternity are developing which will one day take
root everywhere. While the winter winds are raging the gardener sows the
seed in the protection of his hothouse. After a while the plants will be
carried outdoors to live under the sky. Similarly, inside the protecting
arms of the Fraternity is growing a spirit which, as rapidly as conditions
permit, must make itself felt everywhere. The great work of the world must
be done by the combined and co-operating efforts of all the men of the
world. At present that world lies dismembered about us, bleeding at every
pore. This does not mean that brotherhood is a failure. It means that a
world without brotherhood is a failure. Brotherhood is the only practicable
means of healing the hurts of mankind. Every individual who learns in the
lodge the lessons of brotherhood and who goes through life everywhere
practising that lesson is helping toward the new order of things wherein
will dwell peace for all men.

A thing that must
achieve such a work as this cannot be a puny growth of private
sentimentality. It is a world power capable of gigantic efforts. Those who
think of it merely as a hand clasp and a slap on the back are dealing with
it like children. It is a world law, destined to change the earth into
conformity with itself, and as a world power it is something superb,
awe-inspiring, god-like.

"I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of
Democracy;

By
God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the
same terms. . . .

WHAT IS MEANT BY BROTHERHOOD OF MAN
91

I
dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of
the rest of the earth;

I
dreamed that was the new City of Friends; nothing was greater there than the
quality of robust love—it led the rest. . . .

Swiftly arose and
spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the
earth,

And I
know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I
know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And
that all men ever born are also my brothers and the women my sisters and
lovers,

And
that a kelson of the creation is love. . . .

Is
it a dream?

Nay, but the lack of it the dream,

And, failing it, life's lore and wealth a dream,

And
all the world a dream!”

Chapter X

WHAT IS FREEMASONRY'S ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION?

The early operative
builders of the Middle Ages were churchmen, if we may trust the many
histories of architecture which deal with the subject. This was especially
true after the Gothic, or pointed arch, superseded the old Romanesque style
with its round arch and its gloomy interiors, for the advent of the Gothic
coincided with a revival of interest in church architecture. This revival
reached such proportions of zeal and devotion that bishops themselves
studied to become architects (that word was not in use then, but the
function was) and raised such great sums of money for the purpose that many
little towns erected cathedral structures that would now be pointed to with
pride by our great rich modern cities. Needless to say, these builders, the
bishop, directors and overseers along with the men who did the toil, were
true and loyal sons of the Roman Catholic Church as it then existed.

After a while, and
through the inevitable operation of architectural evolution—there is no need
to narrate the story of all the changes in this connection—the
superintendency and direction of building operations (I am still referring
to church and cathedral and similar structures) passed gradually into the
hands of laymen. Of these great lay architects, especially those who worked
in France where Gothic reached its utmost pinnacle of glory, we have many
memorials and remains; in a large

92

ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
98

number of cases we have rather
complete biographical sketches and even portraits. From all these records we
know that the builders of this particular period were also loyal sons of the
Mother Church.

It was so in England as
well as in France, for we find in the Old Charges that the mason, when he
came to unite with the Fraternity, was required to swear to be faithful and
true to the Holy Church as well as to the King. But after the Reformation
had established itself in England—which was quite a while after the death of
Henry VIII—these operative masons, along with the rank and file of men in
all other walks of life, became Protestants,—that is, they became members of
the Church of England.

In many histories of
Freemasonry the account of the religious beginnings of the Craft stops off
short at this place, but that is an error, a very misleading error, and one
that should be carefully avoided by the Masonic student. Freemasonry as it
became organised in 1717, and as we now know it, owed much, very much, to
the operative builders of the Middle Ages, but it also owed much, perhaps
quite as much, to other sources which had nothing whatever to do with
operative building. I refer to occult societies and associations, and to
scattered sources out of which many streams of influence gradually made
their way into the main currents of Speculative Freemasonry.

In the time of Pope
Innocent III (approximately in the year 1200) there began the great
Albigensian Crusades. The purpose of this immense military advance into
southern France was to stamp out flourishing communities of men and women
who had come to believe in a Christianity very different from that
represented by the pope. These men have been described as "Protestants
before the Reformation." In a strict sense they were
94 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

not Protestant, and their ideas were
very far away from those made familiar to us by our own great Protestant
denominations, but these men cherished independence of mind, purity of
conduct, and demanded for themselves liberty of worship. They were the
"heretics." I am myself convinced—though there is not here room to furnish
the data on which my conviction rests—that these "heretics" set loose in
Europe a powerful stream of influence, some of which finally found its way
into Freemasonry.

All our historians, at
least nearly all of them, agree that Freemasonry owes very much to certain
occult societies or groups that flourished—often in secret—during the late
Middle Ages, and even into the after-Reformation times. Chief among these
were the Rosicrucians and the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar had been
in the East; they had come into contact with Jewish, Greek, and Arabic lore,
and they had imbibed strange new ideas from far-away types of Christianity.
The authorities of the Roman Catholic Church attacked these knightly orders
on the ground that they had become heretics—"Gnostics" was the exact word
used. Those who have most carefully examined the evidence (see Henry Charles
Lea's great works on the period) are inclined to believe that the charges
were more or less well grounded. The Knights Templar had become infected
with heresy.

As for the Rosicrucians,
not much is known about them and it is doubtful if much ever will be known
about them, but it is certain that during the seventeenth century there were
many powerful and original thinkers in Europe, especially in Germany, the
Low Countries, and in England, who called themselves "Rosicrucians" and who
made wide use of a (now) strange system of symbols and esoteric means of
communication. It is be
ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
95

lieved by some that Francis Bacon was
a Rosicrucian. I said that not much is known with certainty about them; of
this one thing, however, we can be certain: they were Protestants, when they
were not altogether outside the bounds of Christianity.

About the Kabbalists
more is known. The literature called the Kabbala came into existence in
Spain during the thirteenth century, or thereabouts, and won its way among
the Jews who had grown weary of the sterile rationalism of Maimonides and
his school. The Kabbalistical literature was dramatically brought to the
attention of the intellectual circles of Europe by Reuchlin when, in or
about 150o, he caught it up as a means of preventing a terrible slaughter of
Jews by the papists. The Kabbala is a work of Jewish mysticism. From it
there may have come into Freemasonry, so there is good reason to believe,
the Legend of the Lost Word, the Tradition of Solomon's Temple, the
Tradition of the Substitute Word, the Great Pillars, etc.

It should be further
noted that during the century immediately preceding the famous Revival
(1717) many men came into the Fraternity who were—to a certain extent—what
would now be called Free Thinkers. This is not to say that they were
atheists or anti-religious; it means that they chose to think for
themselves, and were not able to accept many things officially taught by the
churches. Quite a number of the founders and early champions of the Royal
Society (this fact is overlooked too often) were active Freemasons, and so
were many other learned men in different quarters who, in that period of
rationalism, did not adhere to any religion at all, albeit, like Voltaire
and the Deists, they believed in a Supreme Being. It is certain that many of
these men found their way into the Fraternity at a period before the Revival
and I have no doubt that they had something to
96 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

do at the time with the complete
releasing of Freemasonry from adhesion to any one religion whatsoever. The
great paragraph "Concerning God and Religion" which Anderson (or whoever it
was) incorporated in the first Grand Lodge Constitutions, is a frank
statement to the effect that whereas in ancient times Freemasons had been
obliged to be of the religion of the country in which they lived, that now
no religious demands would be made of them save that they were not to be
stupid atheists or irreligious libertines. The adoption of the paragraph
marks an epoch in the evolution of religion in the English-speaking world.
It was a great magna charta of spiritual liberty proclaimed at a time when
religious bigotry was more bigoted than ever, and when men were suffering
all manner of, persecution for daring to disagree with the official dogmas
of the churches. The Masonic student should make the most careful study of
this period of Masonic history because it was at this time that the
constitutions and landmarks were adopted (many of them, anyhow) that are
still in force, and it is to that period that Grand Lodges almost always
turn when seeking for precedents whereon to establish new laws or
regulations or interpretations. Unless one clearly grasps the principles
built into Speculative Freemasonry at that time, he will ever remain
hopelessly in the dark about the underlying principles of Freemasonry as it
now exists.

As time went on it came
to pass that Freemasonry began to grow at a great rate, and it was
inevitable, owing to the serious and religious character of the ritual, that
many of the men drawn to it should be churchmen, or otherwise devout. A
trend toward Christianisation of the Order set in. In 1760 the Holy Bible
was made a Great Light. In 1813, at the time of the famous Union of the two
Grand Lodges, the Ancient and the
ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
97

Modern, Freemasonry was specifically
declared to be consecrated to the glory of God. After this the tide toward
Christianisation set in with new power until it at last culminated in the
work of Dr. George Oliver, whose name should be held in everlasting
remembrance among Masons. To Oliver the whole Masonic system was essentially
Biblical and wholly Christian. He was so fruitful in influence, his books
were so many, and his followers so numberless, that for decades men entirely
lost sight of the original principles of Speculative Masonry— that Masonry,
I mean, that is usually referred back for its origin to 1717. Indeed, that
impulse has not yet by any means spent itself; many brethren, misled by the
predominantly Scriptural cast of the Work, and misunderstanding a few
scattered references here and there, assume that in some sense Freemasonry
is specifically a Christian institution, and forget, the while, the presence
of a great number of Jews in the Order, not to mention many who adhere to no
one religion whatsoever. So late as 1887

Brother H. J. Whymper published a
book, since become standard, "The Religion of Freemasonry," in which he
boldly upheld the thesis that Freemasonry is a specifically Christian
institution. The work was introduced by W. J. Hughan, and edited by G. W.
Speth.

It is probable that
Brother Whymper (I join with all in honouring a name so illustrious in our
annals) forgot the great and epoch-making Proclamation issued by H. R. H.
the Duke of Sussex, M. W. Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England,
published from Kensington Palace, July 2, 1842, which Proclamation plainly
declared that Freemasonry is not the property of any one religion, and that
those subjects of the Crown in India who were otherwise eligible and who
could make a sincere profession of faith in one living God, be they Hindus
or Mohammedans, might petition for membership
98 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

in Freemasonry. That Proclamation
established a precedent of vast influence, so that to-day the Fraternity
flourishes in the Far East to an undreamed of extent, and it is quite
impossible, in view of the fact of Masonic universality, to claim for any
one religion, as against all others, the adhesion of this Order.

The Bible is the sacred
book of Christians; the ritual of Freemasonry is steeped in the Bible:
therefore Freemasonry must be considered a Christian institution; this is
the logic, expressed or implied, by which men have been led to hold that the
Craft adheres to that one religion as against all others. These brethren
should be made to understand the facts in the case. It is true that the Holy
Bible was the ultimate source of much in the ritual, but one need only try
to test the ritual by Biblical references to find that after all the ritual
is not built on the text of the Bible, for the great major incidents in the
ritual—and this applies to all the grades— are not found in the Book at all.
To cite but one example; the tragedy of Hiram Abiff which is so central to
all the mysteries of Masonry, is not met with in any of the sacred books.
The explanation of this lies ready to hand. Traditions and legends,
suggested long ago by incidents in the Bible, were taken up here and there
by different groups and worked over into new shapes and to new purposes. A
luxuriant undergrowth of legend and myth sprang up about the feet of the old
Bible stories, of which f act the rich old tales of Arthur and his Table and
of the Search for the Grail, woven by Tennyson into the deeply coloured and
mystical poems of The Idylls of the King, may serve as a familiar example.
Mediaeval religion, art, and architecture, as everybody knows, are all
steeped in these old traditions, many of which had undergone an evolution
that led them to become com
ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
99

pletely cut away from their original
sources in the Sacred Writings.

The Biblical traditions
in Freemasonry did not come into it directly from the Bible, but from these
other and secondary sources, and in long round-about paths, so that, by the
time they had come to be incorporated into the ritual, they had undergone
many profound transformations, and it is no longer possible to call them
Biblical, save as such traditions as the above mentioned Holy Grail may also
be called Biblical. The Legend of the Lost Word, of the Substitute Word, of
the great Temple of which Hiram Abiff was Grand Master, etc., etc., all had,
no doubt, their first inspiration in the Biblical narratives, but they have
since travelled so far away from their sources that they may be thought of,
like the old myths of the Greeks, as belonging to the whole world, and to
men of all religions.

But while it is true
that Freemasonry cannot be claimed by any one religion—no intelligent
Freemason will make such a claim, however devout he may be in his own faith
—it has a religious foundation that is all its own. Believing that there is
under all the creeds one universal religion, which may be described as a
belief in one God as the Father of all, in the immortality of the soul, and
in the brotherhood of man, it demands of all its initiates adhesion to these
root truths. What other things they may choose to believe, and how they may
interpret or elaborate these fundamentals, is left wholly to their own
private judgment. It is as if the Fraternity said to its children, "Here is
the great substructure, the mother rock under your feet, on which you must
each one build your own house of religion; what manner of temples you build,
and in what style, and where, and how high, that I shall leave to you
individually; but on the substructure
100 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

of belief in God, in brotherhood, and
in immortality, you must build, else you do not belong to me.”

One of the most famous
pronouncements on the subject—a delicate one, and susceptible of many
misunderstandings—about which I have endeavoured to write in this chapter
was that contributed by Brother William James Hughan as an Introduction to a
book written by his friend and colleague, Brother Henry Josiah Whymper, and
entitled "The Religion of Freemasonry," already mentioned above. In that now
famous volume Brother Whymper undertook to prove that Freemasonry should
confine its membership entirely to the adherents of one religion. In taking
friendly issue with this thesis Brother Hughan gave expression to his own
view of the subject in a statement of the case which I am fain to reproduce
here, not only because it brings the weight of his great authority to the
support of my own position but because it is in itself of such intrinsic
value as deserves a much wider reading than is ever accorded to the
Introduction to a book. I may add to this the further fact that Brother
Whymper's book was edited by Brother George William Speth, the brilliant and
beloved first secretary of the Quatnor Coronati Lodge of Research, whose
attainments in Masonic scholarship gave him a place not far behind that of
Hughan himself. In a "Note by the Editor" Brother Speth frankly expresses
himself concerning Brother Whymper's thesis as not being "in complete accord
with him." It is good for us to study carefully the opinions of all our
leaders in Masonic thought on this subject because, though it is probable
that ninety per cent of competent Masonic opinion is in agreement with
Hughan's position rather than with Whymper's, the subject is still so
acrimoniously debated in some quarters that it behoves a sober-minded
student to see to it that
ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
101

his own opinions are of light rather
than heat. The whole subject is one about which we must learn to disagree
without being disagreeable. Brother Hughan's Introduction follows.

On agreeing to write a
short introduction to Brother Whymper's work, I had no idea the latter was
to be of such an extensive character. As it is, however, nothing appears to
be needed to ensure its careful perusal, for the volume tells its own tale
in unmistakable language, and requires no sponsor. This is fortunate, as it
is rather awkward for my part to be done when not quite in full sympathy
with the author on the general question.

It is quite clear that
my friend has every confidence in the stand he has taken and fears no
opposition, so that my task is certainly the easier under such happy
circumstances, and the more so, when it is noted how thoroughly Brother
Whymper has treated this confessedly difficult subject. His industry and
perseverance have been unbounded, and no researches or enquiries appear to
have been spared to make the work thoroughly comprehensive and authentic.
The result is an invaluable repertory of facts, which constitute an
excellent and trustworthy foundation on which to build our theories and
opinions, whether favourable or otherwise to the views propounded by the
enthusiastic and distinguished author, besides furnishing us with the
matured observations and convictions of a zealous Masonic student.

One of the chief objects
of the work is to illustrate "the circumstance that the original principles
of Freemasonry were based on Christian Catholicity," as evidenced by the
premier "Constitutions" of 1723, and more distinctly by the 2nd edition of
1738; several portions of which, submitted for that purpose, are given in
parallel columns, with some later variations, to 1884. To my
102 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

mind, however, they all tend in the
direction of cosmopolitanism and religious universality, save the copy of
1722 (which is scarcely suitable for comparison with the Modern Speculative
Regulations), that of 1723 by particularly being indicative of the altered
conditions of the Society of that period.

That English Freemasonry
was Christian prior to the organisation of the premier Grand Lodge cannot be
doubted by those who are familiar with the "Old Charges" used by the Craft
during the preceding centuries. In this respect, as in several others, I
entirely concur with Brother Whymper, and am, moreover, bound to admit that
no record exists of any express agreement to change the Fraternity from an
exclusively Christian to a religious or theistic organisation.

But if the original
Christian basis of the Society should be continued, because never expressly
altered by the "Revivalists," it appears to me that logically such a
condition could not be observed by favouring the platform of Catholicity,
inasmuch as Freemasonry until the era of Grand Lodge was distinctly
Trinitarian, and hence Unitarians were but little more suitable as members
under the old system than Jews or men of other faiths. Precisely when other
candidates than Jews were admitted into the Brotherhood with professed
Christians it is not easy to determine, but as respects our Israelitish
members, we shall not be far wrong if we date their first welcome into the
Fraternity as far back as one hundred and fifty years, or even more.

The R\ W\ Brother
McIntyre, Q. C., P. G. W. (as Grand Registrar), declared in Grand Lodge (5th
Dec., 1877) that "up to 1813, the two Grand Lodges of England were Christian
Grand Lodges. In 1813 we became a Universal Grand Lodge, and Jews were
admitted amongst us." I am not aware of any facts to corrobo
ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
103

rate such an assertion, the simple
truth being that they are all in the opposite direction, the less exclusive
Constitution having been in force before the "Union.”

The lamented Lord
Tenterden, K. C. B. (Prov. G. W. Essex), declared at the same Communication
that "when Freemasonry was introduced into Germany last century, it was
constituted on the Christian system of St John. . .. The Three Globes Lodge
was constituted in 1740 as a Christian lodge." According to Brother Gould,
P. G. D. (and there is no better guide), this lodge was started by the sole
authority of Frederick the Great, so that we are not much concerned with
what was done under those circumstances; but in reference to the
introduction of Freemasonry into that country, we may be assured that, so
far as England was concerned, there was no departure from the ordinary usage
of that period, and that no Warrants of Constitution were granted of a
different character to those authorised for other countries by the premier
Grand Lodge.

It must be conceded that
even now Freemasonry is "simply and purely Christian" under some Grand
Lodges, but so long as such organisations are willing to admit visitors from
England and other countries, where the Craft is established on broader
lines, it is not for us to object to their narrower system. The late Earl of
Zetland, as Grand Master, obtained all necessary concessions from such Grand
Lodges during the fifth decade of this century by securing the recognition
of all regular brethren as visitors, without regard to their religious faith
and creed. More than this we cannot fairly require; though it leaves much to
be desired.

It was distinctly
announced by authority of the M\W\ Grand Master in 1865

that there was nothing to prevent any
one "who believes in the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent God, and
who in private
104 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

life practises the sacred duties of
morality, from being initiated into the secrets and mysteries of our Order."
This decision was officially communicated, because the then District Grand
Master of Bengal objected to Hindoos being proposed as candidates for
initiation, notwithstanding one of that number had offered to make a
declaration that "he was not a Pantheist or Polytheist, and did not identify
the Creator with any of his creatures, but believed in T. G. A. 0. T. U.”

Lord Zetland but
followed in the steps of his illustrious predecessor, H. R. H. the Duke of
Sussex, M W. Grand Master, who aided in the arrangements for the initiation
of a Mohammedan in 1836, and was in full sympathy with those who desired to
extend rather than curtail the foundation on which Freemasonry rests.

It is clear, however,
that such authoritative decisions presuppose that candidates cherish or have
adopted some particular form of religious faith, and are not simply Deists,
because the obligation to secrecy and fidelity is to be taken on those
"Sacred Writings" which to them are binding on their consciences.

Still, with all the
predilections for a comprehensive and cosmopolitan basis, nothing can
obliterate the evidences of the Christian origin of our Fraternity, and
hence, whilst prepared to the fullest extent possible to accept worthy
neophytes without respect to their creed, colour, or clime, one cannot but
feel that those brethren who are neither professed Christians, nor Jews,
will meet with numerous references in our ceremonies founded on the Old and
New Testament Scriptures, which will not favour their own notions of
theology.

The Bible should always
be "the Great Light of the Craft," and never be closed in open lodge,
whatever volumes else may be at times essential for the purposes of
reception. I have never heard of any objections to
ATTITUDE TOWARD RELIGION
105

such a rule, and trust that none will
ever be urged, for unless other religionists are prepared to practise as
well as expect toleration by thus maintaining the actual and obligatory
foundations of the Society, the continuity and identity of the Institution
cannot be permanently and uniformly preserved.

Brother Whymper
evidently favours separate Jewish, Parsee, Hindoo, and Mohammedan lodges,
but would such a plan really meet his objections to the present regime? He
emphatically states that "it is impossible for any man, no matter what his
former religion may have been, to become a Fellow Craft Mason in English
Masonry and refuse to accept both the Old and the New Testaments." How,
then, would those distinctive combinations provide for such a contingency?
If we cannot do with these religionists in our lodges, I do not see how we
can do without them—i.e., in separate lodges. We meet on the Level or not at
all, and therefore, if we cannot as votaries of various faiths become
members together in lodge, and thus illustrate the "Brotherhood of Man,"
better far to refrain from all attempts at universality, and revert to an
exclusively Christian Constitution, as in the olden time.

I am anxious to look at
the question in all its aspects, and do not mention difficulties because of
any fondness for them, but simply to suggest that if a return to the old
system is to be recommended, and primarily because it prevailed prior to the
inauguration of Grand Lodges, it is well we should understand what is
involved in such a course.

At all events, it seems
to me that we are at the present time observing the old rule of 1723, in
promoting the "religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular
opinions to themselves," as well as respecting some of the usages and
customs of our Grand Lodge. Besides which,
206 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

by thus extending the scope of our
Ancient and Honour able Society, we are adding immensely to its beneficial
influence and practical usefulness, especially abroad.

Holding this view, and
bearing in mind the esteemed brethren who hold and advocate otherwise, I am
prepared to accept the opinion and advice of the revered Brother, the Rev.
A. F. A. Woodford, M. A., P. G. Chap., who maintained that "the Christian
School and the Universal School can co-exist in Freemasonry. Though their
views are necessarily antagonistic, yet they need not be made the subject of
contention; they can be held in peace and consideration, and all fraternal
goodwill. Indeed, we think, upon the whole, that Freemasonry has, curiously
enough, a twofold teaching in this respect.”

According to Brother
Whymper's convictions, the spread of the Craft in India amongst Parsees,
Hindoos, and Mohammedans calls for serious consideration, and increasingly
so when brethren of each of those faiths become sufficiently numerous to
support lodges composed mainly of members of their own persuasion.

Should difficulties
arise in consequence, we may yet have to try the ingenious suggestion of
chartering lodges for each particular faith, subject to the rights of mutual
visitation; but I confess to the feeling that, should ever such be deemed
requisite, an element of religious distinction and classification will be of
necessity introduced, which will considerably modify or weaken the
un-sectarian .character of the Institution.

Clearly, then, this
important subject deserves—in fact, demands—our earnest attention and
careful consideration, and our hearty thanks are due to Brother Whymper for
having so fraternally introduced the matter to our notice in the following
pages.

Chapter XI

MASONRY AS A WORLD-WIDE FRATERNITY

In all the
lore of Freemasonry nothing more appeals to the imagination of the young
initiate than the story of how travellers have found Freemasons among the
wilds, and how our mysteries have been discovered amid the most ancient
peoples, in old China, in Central America, "in Egypt forty thousand years
ago." These stories are as romantic as Kipling's bloody tale, "The Man Who
Would be King," which is itself a hint of the universal existence of the
Craft, because they appeal to the imagination, and conjure up the picture of
a Fraternity which has always existed, and now exists everywhere. One must
be on his guard against these stories, for it is fatally easy to fabricate
them; if a man sets out to prove a theory he usually can dig up something
somewhere to serve as evidence, like those

. . . "Learn'd philologists, who
chase

A panting syllable through time and space,

Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark

To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.”

But even so, many of
the accounts of the universal diffusion of Masonic secrets and traditions
are as well authenticated as anything we have, and are not to be despised,
though a man be ever so high-brow a critic. Though they are to have each and
every one a question mark placed after them, they nevertheless serve to
give

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THE GREAT TEACHINGS OF
MASONRY

to one's mind a kind of composite
picture of the Universality of Freemasonry, than which there is no nobler
theme inside the pale of the Great Teachings which it is now our province to
be studying.

I believe that it is
safe to say that now, at this present moment, and as a matter of fact,
Freemasonry is Universal,—and that for many reasons.

It may be that the body
of Freemasonry, as we know it, came into existence only two hundred years
ago; but the soul of Freemasonry, its spirit, many of its principles and its
symbols, have been among men from a time since which the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary. In China, in the ruins of ancient
Latin-American civilisations (I have just seen the carving of a Masonic
apron —so it is interpreted by the authorities—on a plaque taken from a city
of the Mayas that is several thousand years old, how many thousands I can't
recall), throughout mediaeval Europe, among the so-called Dark Ages, in
Ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, and even in India, one may here and there
encounter organisations, teachings, emblems, and symbols that are singularly
like our own. Some things in our Fraternity have evidently existed
everywhere and always.

This diffusion through
past times is only equalled by the cosmopolitanism of Masonry as it now is.
If one travels in the far north, in Siberia or in Alaska, he may encounter a
Masonic lodge. If he goes into the Sandwich Islands (as at Papeete) or to
the last reaches of southern Australia, he may come upon a building bearing
the square and compasses. There are lodges in China and Japan, in the Malay
Archipelago, in India, in the Balkans, and in the midst of Africa. Masonry
has its centre everywhere: its circumference nowhere.

The evolution of the
Craft reveals a steady progress from an institution that once was attached
to one church
MASONRY AS A WORLD-WIDE
FRATERNITY 109

and to one task to an institution
that now over-reaches all the creeds as the sky over-arches the earth, and
accepts the responsibility of many tasks. In that history one encounters an
event which stands as a high light in the history of the human spirit, —the
utterance "Concerning God and Religion" in the Constitutions of 1723—and
which is the noblest expression of the spiritual universality of the Order
that we know.

"A Mason is obliged by
his tenure, to obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he
will never be a stupid Atheist or irreligious Libertine. But though in
ancient times Masons were charged in every country to be of the religion of
that country or nation, whatever it was, yet it is now thought more
expedient only to oblige them to that religion in which all men agree,
leaving their particular opinions to themselves: that is, to be Good men and
True, or men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denomination or Persuasion
they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry becomes the Centre of Union and
the Means of conciliating true Friendship among persons that must have
remained at a perpetual distance.”

Of this it has been well
said that if "that statement had been written yesterday, it would be
remarkable enough. But when we consider that it was set forth in 1723,
amidst bitter sectarian rancour and intolerance unimaginable, it rises up as
forever memorable in the history of men! The man who wrote that document,
did we know his name, is entitled to be held till the end of time in the
grateful and venerative memory of the race. The temper of the times was all
for relentless partisanship, both in religion and in politics." In that
famous Article the prophetic soul of Masonry, "brooding over years to come,"
anticipated the highest triumphs of the genius of tolerance which was yet
to be, so that Crawley could well
110 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

say that "in the eyes of the
philosophical historian, the proudest boast of our society must always be
that in the Revival of our Craft, A.D. 1717, we distinctively adopted the
doctrines which found expression two generations later, in the Philanthropy
of Howard and the humanity of a Wilberforce.

Of a piece with this
famous pronouncement was the Act of Union in 1813. During the long process
through which the Fraternity was achieving its unity out of the
particularism of the old days of transition it was inevitable that there
should be misunderstandings, schisms, feuds, and jealousies: all these came
to a head in 1750 or thereabouts in the open warfare between the rival Grand
Lodges, the so-called "Modern" and the so-called "Ancient." For long it
appeared that the Order, like the religious, political, and social
institutions of the time, was merely talking about a unity and a
universality that it had neither the will nor the power to bring into
existence: but at last Freemasonry overcame its own internal feud, which had
been as bitter as the rivalry between two churches, and thus demonstrated
that men can do such things, if they but have the mind.

These two outstanding
events, the Act of Union, and the adopting of the great paragraph concerning
God and Religion, remain unto this day to inspire every Mason to believe
that union is possible among men, however diverse they may be in interest
and creed: more, they cheer and encourage because they demonstrate that it
can be accomplished, and such a demonstration is worth more than many
homilies. So long as we have those two outstanding triumphs to look back to
we need never lose hope for the ultimate unity of the whole Masonic world,
and the whole non-Masonic world. Union and universality, such things are not
mere visions, dreamed by poets in solitary cells.

MASONRY AS A WORLD-WIDE FRATERNITY
111

Furthermore, the Fraternity as it
now exists, with all its faults upon it, is, as I like to think, itself the
great argument for the coming of unity among men. For consider. Men of all
races, of all colours, of almost every creed, tongue, nation, and location
are now, as an actual fact, Masons, and therefore bound to all the rest of
us, however far away we may be in all those particulars, by a tie that is
growing stronger every year. Not always does that tie hold—the Great War
broke it—but it is a tie nevertheless, and there will come a time when no
war will be able to snap it in twain. If each one of us could see the world
as God is able to see it, not at one point, and for a moment, and then in a
most faulty fashion, but as a whole, calmly, clearly, understandingly, I am
sure that we should see the Masonic Fraternity standing there among men as
one of the noblest of all the noble things in that vision; like the moon
breaking through the clouds on a stormy night would be its tender
brotherhood and its constant yearning and striving for more brotherhood; and
its refusal to be defeated or balked when brotherhood, for a time, fails or
is broken.

We need not hesitate to
acknowledge the many defeats which the ideal of Universality has suffered
even in the house of its friends, but every such fact, if we are to be true
to things as they really are, must be confronted by this further fact,—That
Universality in Masonry, for all its failures, is a living and therefore a
shaping ideal. One wishes that he might write those last words in some new
way to make them dig deep into a reader's mind in order to avoid a too easy
thinking of them. An ideal is a force to be reckoned with, and not a dream
hanging helpless in the void. Masons believe in Universality; they strive
for it; they shape things to bring it about; they make sacrifices in its
behalf; they are always, in proportion as they truly understand their art,
eager to let dif
112 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

ferences lie if so be that they can
bring men closer to men. That being true, there is no need ever to feel
discouragement because the perfect day has not yet come; if we were all
doing mere lip service to our ideal, pessimism might be justifiable, but not
as long as we strive for universal brotherhood.

Moreover, it is wise for
us, even when confronted by some apparent failure of universality, to see
that failure as it actually is, and not as it is hurriedly reported to be.

There is in point, for
example, the long disagreement between the Grand Orient of France and the
Grand Lodge of England, and other Grand Lodges in the world. That break in
Masonic fellowship is made use of by our enemies more than any other thing
to heap sarcasm upon Masonic aspirations towards unity. Well, that rupture
is an unfortunate thing for all sides, view it how we may, but just what
does it amount to? It amounts to this, that the Masons living under these
two Grand Lodge systems cannot visit in each other's lodges, or approve one
or two of each other's doctrines. But there is no enmity. Masons under the
Grand Orient do not make war on English Masons. They do not hate each other.
In all ways now possible they aid and assist each other. In all ways, save
in those ways controlled by the lack of formal recognition, French Masons
and other Masons live in amity and brotherhood. Some day the breach will be
healed, just as will the still wider breach existing between the lodges of
Germany and lodges among the Allied Nations.

In carrying out their
ideal there is no reason why Masons may not make free use of all the
agencies now employed generally to further internationalism, understanding
among peoples, and mutual intercourse. The scientists have their congresses,
business men have their conventions, statesmen their conferences: one may
hope
MASONRY AS A WORLD-WIDE FRATERNITY
113

to see American Grand Lodges use
these same instrumentalities in behalf of a better understanding among
nations. The Trowel is the working tool of the Master Mason; we must make
use of it now more than ever, while a discordant and broken world lies about
us. It is unfortunate that certain of our leaders hesitate to use the Trowel
lest they mar its shining surface, forgetting the while that it is to be
used and not looked at.

The necessary
implications of Universality, so it seems to me, are not enough understood.
Universality being a fact and a living ideal, certain things follow, and
these it is well to consider.

It is evident that an
Order which speaks a message to a world has found something that the world
can understand and needs. Its acts, its principles, and its symbols are a
kind of great Esperanto which perpetually translates itself into the
languages of all men everywhere. Diverse as are the conditions under which
men live, political, social, economic, and religious, men have certain
common needs. Just as it has ever been one of the great desiderata of
statecraft to discover a common ground whereon nations might meet
politically, so has it ever been one of the great hopes of men to find such
a ground in morality, and in the human things of life. It is evident that
Freemasonry has made that discovery. What it has to give is what men
everywhere feel the need of, else it would remain, as almost all
institutions do, a merely local and transitory thing. The things that
Freemasonry has to give are simple enough, and to us may be commonplace, but
just as it required a great social genius to discover an alphabet, which
children can learn and all men can use, so has it necessitated an equal
genius to discover just those things, and their right combination, to meet
the needs of men everywhere. The fact that Masonry is everywhere welcomed as
soon as it is
114 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

discovered and its nature understood,
gives us each one a heightened confidence in that which Masonry is.

Also, the universality
of Masonry implies that human nature is everywhere fundamentally the same,
which fact, though it may be familiar enough to most of us, is not by any
means admitted by many of a different faith. Socrates counted it a great day
when he discovered that behind the varying languages and dialects and modes
of thought and expression all men had the same kind of mind: Spencer found
himself in a new world of thought when he at last saw that "humanity is an
organism." "Men change," said the wise Goethe, "but man remains the same."
Racial distinctions, sex, colour, language, creeds, governments, these have
broken our human family into diverse and often quarrelling groups: but while
men change in language, in theories, and in customs from generation to
generation, there is that in man which does not change, either in time or
place, a common humanity which ever remains the same, and stretches under
the world, as the earth retains her unbroken identity beneath the many
inequalities of her surface. From the mist-hung distance of the remotest
times down unto our own hour man has thought, loved, laboured, dreamed,
prayed, hated, fought, the while he has walked "the dim and perilous way of
life." His spirit has sought goodness, truth, and beauty, and he has
evermore craved the companionship of his fellows. It is the misfortune of
too many creeds, moralities and sects, be they political, social, or
religious, that they cater to the accidental and temporary needs of men, and
too often divide rather than unite our hard-driven struggling race. It is
the glory of Freemasonry that it speaks the revealing word to that in each
of us which is universal, thereby helping to build in the midst of the years
"an institution of the dear love of comrades" in which the mind is free to
think, the hand
MASONRY AS A WORLD-WIDE FRATERNITY
115

to do, and the heart to love. William
Penn believed that death would remove our masks and that we would all then
discover ourselves to be of one religion. The Universality of Freemasonry
lifts the masks of all differences now and proves that we are all united in
our humanity, that God has made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the
face of the earth.

In regards to morality
and religion this seems especially true. There is much in the morality of
every people that cannot help being local and therefore temporary; and this
is not to be held against it because a morality, if it function at all, must
adjust itself to the details of life; but if an institution tie itself too
rigidly to those local things in morality it cannot possibly function among
another people, where conditions are so different. Some men believe that all
morality is purely local, made up of prejudices and accidents, and that
there is no ethic everywhere valid. Masonry contradicts this. Masonry proves
itself wiser than many other institutions, because it, in the words of
Albert Pike, "is the universal morality, suitable to the inhabitants of
every clime, to the man of every creed.”

Freemasonry makes no
attempts to adjudicate the religious quarrels of the race. It does not take
the position that there is one true religion among a great many religions
wholly false, nor does it take the opposite position that all religions are
equally indifferent. Its position is entirely its own. It takes the position
that, letting religions be as they are, they one and all possess certain
fundamentals everywhere alike, and it is on these fundamentals that Masonry
takes its stand. In a letter which a Deputy District Grand Master once wrote
to George William Speth there occurred this sentence: "I have just initiated
Moung Ban Ahm, a Burman, who has so far modified his religious beliefs as to
ac
116 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

knowledge the existence of a personal
God. The Worshipful Master was a Parsi, one Warden a Hindu, or Brahman, the
other an English Christian, and the Deacon a Mohammedan." Mr. Ahm believed
in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, and in the brother
hood of man: that was sufficient. He was not disturbed in whatever other
beliefs he had because if a man holds to the three mentioned his religion
can function inside the Masonic Fraternity. And once in the Fraternity he
could find no reason to quarrel with his brother the Brahman, or his other
brother the Christian, or his brother the Mohammedan, because in every case
the doctrines peculiar to each were not called for in Masonic workings, and
therefore such doctrines could have no chance to come into conflict.
Inasmuch as the only religious doctrines that operate in Masonry are belief
in a personal God, in immortality, and in brotherhood, the man who holds
them is, for Masonry, sufficiently equipped, and Masonry has no reason to
find fault with whatever he may further believe: and because nearly all men
in the world, be they ever so far removed from us in America, believe in
those three-great doctrines, and because Masonry builds upon them, Masonry
may be said to have a genuine religious Universality. And this, if you will
consider a moment, is a very great thing: prophets and leaders and teachers
and religions without number have ever been searching for just such a
foundation.

But even if early Masons
had hit upon so universal a foundation for a Fraternity it would have
availed little had they not at the same time devised a form of organisation
equally universal. It is worth while to consider this a moment, because it
is almost never discussed. History furnishes us with an illustration whereby
it can be quickly considered for our present purposes. Why
MASONRY AS A WORLD-WIDE FRATERNITY
117

was it that the Reformation, as
launched by Luther, soon grew stagnant, and became a merely local German
affair? It was because in Germany it was suffered to flow into the mould of
German social life, and this mould not existing elsewhere, the Reformation
was unable to function outside Germany. The spirit and doctrines of the
Reformation were there, but Luther and his followers were not able to give
them a vehicle wherein to travel into other countries. It was the peculiar
glory of Calvin that he was able to give the Reformation just such an
organisation as enabled him and his followers to take it anywhere. They
devised for it a vehicle that would serve as well in France as in Germany,
and in Scotland as in France, and it was therefore owing to Calvin that the
Reformation became, so far as the Western world is concerned, a universal
thing. Early Freemasonry might have been as true in principle and spirit as
it now is and yet, for lack of vehicular means, have remained a local
English sect, or club. Fortunately it was not so, and that because our
forbears possessed a genius for organisation equal to that for thinking.

Freemasonry is not the
only great institution in society, nor is it responsible for healing over
all the divisions of the world, be they religious, political, social,
economic, racial, or what not: but it has found a way to surmount those
barriers in order to penetrate into every land, and that is sufficient for
its purpose. Because of this it has an unlimited future.

"There are works yet
left for Freemasonry to accomplish greater than the twelve labours of
Hercules." Many of these labours lie inside the Craft itself where there
still remain many obstacles to internal unity, and therefore to external
universality. There are many Masonic rites in the field, and these are not
always working together as smoothly as they should. There are
118 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Masonic bodies of the
same rite that do not always agree, as is the case now among a few of the
Grand Lodges of Mexico. And, as already mentioned, the sundering of peoples
by the late War has broken the unity of the Order. It is a part of our task
to heal over these divisions. It is a part of our task to make Masonic unity
prevail.

Chapter XII

THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD

Many
attempts have been made to expound Freemasonry's teaching concerning God by
recourse to the peculiar phraseology that is employed in the ritual, but
these attempts have always broken down because the ritualistic language has
been fashioned, not for the purposes of exact theological thinking, but for
symbolical and ritualistic purposes. God is not in fact an architect; such a
term is very misleading. It suggests a great artificer who made the worlds
out of nothing, or else out of crude material, and who went about it as a
carpenter might frame a house. Such a Being would necessarily exist apart
from the thing He has made, as a machinist is apart from the mechanism he
contrives. The modern mind will have nothing to do with such ideas because
men have learned that God cannot be conceived of as living and working apart
from the universe, but must somehow be involved in that universe. The
Masonic thinker can escape from these difficulties by remembering that in
the ritual God is known as T. S. G. A. 0. T. U., not because such words
describe His nature as Masonry understands it, but because such an
appellation is in harmony with the architectural language of the ceremonies.

Freemasonry nowhere
offers a definition of the nature and attributes of God, but leaves such
matters to each individual to fashion as best he can. It asks of a man only
that he believe that God is. It does not even try

119

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THE GREAT
TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

to prove the existence of God, after
the fashion of the dogmatic theologians, but assumes that its candidates
already have that belief in their hearts.

However, it appears that
while Freemasonry does not define its conception of God certain attributes
are assumed by the Masonic system as a whole, and taken for granted
throughout it, so that while these attributes are nowhere insisted upon
explicitly, they are a necessary postulate of Masonic teachings as a whole.

In its most fundamental
sense—the only sense in which Freemasonry teaches it—the Fatherhood of God
means that when a human being comes into existence there is somewhat in him
(let us not try to define it) that derives immediately from God's own being;
and that through all his existence—which we believe to be endless—this man's
being remains rooted in God's own being, so that if God himself were to
cease to be the man would also, and at the same instant, cease to be. In the
language of metaphysics the relation between God and man is ontological. It
exists in the nature of things, so that neither God nor man could cause it
not to be; and it does not depend upon a man's religious beliefs, or upon
any other belief or opinion. All men, whatever be their faith or fortune,
from Plato down to the African dwarf, have this relation with God. What God
is to any one He is to every other one, and all that God can be to or do for
any man, He is to and does for all men equally, and everlastingly. This
eternal and universal Fatherhood in Him does not come into existence when we
begin to believe it; it is already a fact before we believe it, and remains
a fact whether we believe it or not.

The Fatherhood of God is
more than a symbol: it is a fact, albeit of a very different nature from
human fatherhood. By God's love is meant that our being is rooted in Him,
and that He is ever doing for us all that a God
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD
121

can do. His relation to us is neither
purchased nor given but holds in the very structure of life itself. It does
not rest on sentiment or emotion but in the nature of things, so that it is
a great blunder to suppose that because God is our Father therefore He can,
at will, reverse the processes of the universe or set aside the everlasting
laws of things. He remains our Father through all our experiences, but not
for that reason are we shielded from pain, from loss, and from the extreme
horrors into which our own or the world's ignorance, or the vicissitudes of
fortune may bring us. Nevertheless, whatever be our lot, it is the great
secret of our courage to know that the show and scheme of things is not
swirling about us in the winds of chance, but that our lives are rooted in
One who thoroughly understands us; and that, whatever betide, the inner
stuff of our nature cannot dissolve away into dust, or our beings be brought
to extinction. Our belief in God's Fatherhood—so this is to say—does not
create the fact, but it makes the fact a power in our conscious thought, and
that is a mighty thing.

"The doctrine of
Fatherhood in God is a doctrine of faith. It is a belief about the interior
mystery of the Infinite supported by much, and opposed by much, in the
experience of mankind. It is a belief about the universe, in behalf of our
human world, supported by all that is best in that world; it is fitted to
elevate, energise, gladden and console human beings; it is the belief that
generates and justifies all other high beliefs. If God is the absolute
goodness and compassion, our human world is his concern, all righteousness
has his approval, all efforts at righteousness are followed by his sympathy,
all sin must reckon with his endless enmity, all penitence may count upon
his pity, all strivings at reform may be sure of his inspiration, all union
in the endeavour to cleanse the earth of moral evil may move in the tides of
his Spirit, all grief
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

may find consolation in his infinite
love, all loss may hope to become, in the courses of the ages, eternal gain
in Him. If Fatherhood in God is the ultimate reality in the Infinite, as the
Infinite is related to our human world, that world is glorious with meaning
and with hope.”

The Fatherhood of God is
not anywhere explicitly taught by Freemasonry but it is everywhere implied,
so that the great doctrines peculiar to the Craft demand it for their
guarantor, and make inevitably toward it. The Brotherhood of Man could never
come to pass if the peoples of the world were by their very nature different
from each other; it would be as impossible to bridge over such chasms as it
is now impossible to bring our race into a brotherhood with beasts or trees.

So also is it with
Equality. It is impossible for us ever to be, as I have already tried to
show in this book, of the same fortune or ability, because the conditions in
which we necessarily live make for endless variety, and that is of itself a
kind of inequality: but there is a region beneath all such differences in
which we find ourselves at one. God is to the most ignorant wretch all that
a God can be, and does all things possible for him, so that in such matters
that wretch is the equal of prophets and kings.

Our hope of Democracy is
linked up with the Fatherhood of God. "Always, a new idea of man implies and
involves a new conception of God. It was natural for the men who bowed low
when the glittering chariot of Caesar swept along the streets of Rome to
think of God as an omnipotent Emperor, ruling the world with an arbitrary
and irresponsible almightiness. For men who live in this land of the free
such a conception of God is a caricature. The citizens of a republic do not
believe that God is an infinite autocrat, nor do they bow down to divine
despotism; they worship in the presence of an Eternal
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD
123

Father, who is always and everywhere
accessible to the humblest man who lifts his heart in prayer. Republican
principles necessarily involve faith in the Fatherhood of God. The logic of
the American idea leads to faith in a Divine Love universal and impartial,
all encompassing and everlasting.”

Chapter XIII

FREEMASONRY AND THE ENDLESS LIFE

" 'Tis true; 'tis certain; man though dead retains

Part of himself; the immortal mind remains.”

These words, written by
Homer three thousand years ago, remind us how that ages before the ferment
of modern thought and all the crusades of our modern religions, men believed
in immortality as we do now. If one were to push himself behind Homer into
an age long anterior to his, and as ancient to him as his is to us, one
would find men cherishing the same hope. Imhotep, the father of architecture
in stone, builder to the Egyptian King Zoser, lived five thousand years ago,
but for all that he believed in immortality as did Homer. And so with those
to whom Imhotep looked back; and also with them in their turn; and so on to
the beginning of things when the first half-wild hunter paused long enough
in his search of meat to gaze wistfully across lovely valleys, where
floating gossamers reminded him how frail and how fleeting is human life.

It is useless to try to
prove by logic or by demonstration the immortality of man. We believe it,
there is an end of it! And we do not believe it because we have proved it,
but we try to prove it because we already believe it. It is a hope, a kind
of inward certainty which finds its support not in this fact or in that, but
in the cast and colour of life as a whole. It rises up into our minds like
an exaltation from all our thoughts, all our

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125

experiences, all our dreams, as the
odour that drifts across a summer field distils from numberless unnoted
plants. We are never so puzzled as when we are challenged to give a reasoned
proof of this hope: and we are never so unreasonable as when we cease to
believe it. Men everywhere and always have believed it not because priests
have taught them or because scientists have found out the secret of it, but
because life itself has taught them, and it is something that the universe
itself is always whispering to them. The priests and the churches have not
created the belief: it is the belief that has made the priests and churches,
and no amount of ignorance, baseness, or superstition appears able to blot
out that great hope. The cannibals cling to it, and we ourselves though we
sleep in a gutter, hear it announced within, that whispering gallery which
we call the soul.

"Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither.”

It is impossible to form
any mental picture of the future life. No two religions describe it in the
same way, and some of them, ancient Buddhism, for example, have refused to
describe it at all. Our modern spiritists who follow in the train of Sir
Oliver Lodge, Conan Doyle, Camille Flammarion and their school, believe
themselves to have received authentic news from the Beyond, but
unfortunately they have never been able to agree as to the nature of things
in that unknown realm. It appears that such descriptions as are given
through the mediums, ouija boards and such other occult means of
communication usually conform in a general way to the preconceptions of the
spiritists themselves. The Eskimo spiritist is told that heaven is a
beautiful place
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

full of icebergs and polar bears; the
American Indian learns that it is a happy hunting ground; the Chinese
spiritist—spiritism has been developed in China to a degree of
respectability and perfection never attained elsewhere—is informed that
heaven is a glorified China organised strictly in accord with the principles
of ancestor worship. All this would indicate that if bona fide
communications ever do penetrate the veil the conditions are such as to
preclude the transmission of accurate or definite information, so that
spiritists themselves are in like case with the rest of us who find that eye
hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath it entered into the mind of man to
conceive what the future life is to be like.

Nevertheless it is
difficult to cherish even the thinnest hope of a continued life without
trying to fashion some sort of conception of it, because the mind cannot
otherwise handle the idea at all. Because we hold immortality as a belief we
are compelled to think it as a thought, and it is this psychological
necessity, perhaps, that has led men in every country and in all ages to
make for themselves some picture of heaven. One should not try to quarrel
with this, because one cannot do so successfully: man is so made that he
must behave in this manner, and that is an end of it.

But it is for this
reason, I believe, that we should be all the more careful that our thinking
about the future life be strictly reasonable. if our nature compels us to
think out some conception of immortality, that same nature similarly compels
us to fashion a conception that won't insult the intelligence or fly in the
face of known facts. It is necessary to be reasonable while we reason about
Eternal Life. It seems to me—and I speak here only for myself—that this
principle in itself is one of the
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127

teachings of Freemasonry concerning
this subject. Our Fraternity leaves it to each individual to fashion his own
conceptions of the Beyond, but at the same time, and by all the arts at its
command, persuades its votaries ever to remain in the Light, to seek more
Light, and to fear to walk farther than the Light can lead them: and this
Light itself is, of course, nothing other than reason, and knowledge, and
right thinking. When the subject passes beyond into the darkness of the
unknowable it is better to cease pursuing it further, lest we fall into
superstition.

It is better to remain
agnostic about what the future life is like than to hold fast to unreason.

It is safe and wise to
adhere to the principle that all reality is bound up together into a great
unity—for the which reason we call it a universe—and that one part of this
system does not contradict or give the lie to any other part. There is no
good reason to suppose that death makes any profound change in the scheme of
things. Death is a part of the universe and always has been and, it may
possibly prove, always will be. It is reasonable to suppose that the
universe will be the same after we are dead as it was before, and that
therefore the "future life," as we call it (it is no longer "future" to
those now living it) will in all essentials be of a piece with this present
life. Why should we expect marvels, wonders, and impossibilities there when
such things are not found here? What right have we to suppose that the
experience of death will change our world out of all recognition, and
transform ourselves into beings utterly different from what we are?

"What is human is
immortal," said Bulwer-Lytton. Why is not the reverse also true? What is
immortal is human. We are now in closest relation to an earth, out of the
surface of which we labour to wrest our bread.

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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Each and every one of us
is the member of one race— the human—and of some one grand division thereof,
in consequence of which we differ greatly in colour, language, appearance,
and a hundred other things. The race as a whole is equally divided between
two sexes, the members of which are so unlike each other in many important
respects as to cause one to believe that sexual differences extend into the
inmost recesses of human nature, and are not to be put on or off by any
possible change. We are each one organised in a physical body, and it is
ceaselessly necessary for us to work, to strive, to endure, to eat and
sleep, and to suffer. It may be that all these things will be carried over
into whatever life, or lives, may be waiting for us beyond. They are neither
superficial nor accidental and are so woven into the general scheme of
things that it is difficult to understand how human life could know itself
after death with all such things omitted.

In spite of one's self
such a discussion leads into theology, the most irritating of all subjects,
and the least appropriate to these pages. In a field where no landmarks are
marked out for us we are necessarily forced to fall back on private opinion,
a thing I have done throughout this chapter, and with the most cordial
invitation to the reader to disagree if he is so disposed. I have no
interest as a Mason in theological beliefs concerning the future life save
to secure for ourselves a principle that will guarantee for us the full
protection of the present life and all its values. It may be said that what
a man believes about the future is his own private affair and should be
respected as such. This is very true as long as the man's beliefs about the
life to come do not seriously interfere with the life that now is, a thing
that often happens. If my beliefs cause me to be illiberal, or
FREEMASONRY AND THE ENDLESS LIFE
129

harsh, or unkind, or if they are such
as to destroy. my happiness, then my beliefs become matters of concern to my
fellows, and they have a right to challenge me thereon. It is true, as I
remarked above, that Freemasonry leaves the fashioning of this religious
belief to the individual, nevertheless the Fraternity's spirit and teachings
are distinctly opposed to beliefs that lead a man into unbrotherly behaviour
or unmasonic conduct. What Masonry has to teach concerning immortality is
necessarily of a piece with its other teachings. If democracy, equality,
charity, brotherly love, truth, kindliness, and honourable labour are good
things now they cannot cease to be good things in the life to come. If such
things are of God in this life it is hardly possible that they will cease to
be divine in the next life.

If a man were to ask me
point-blank, "What, in so many words, does Freemasonry teach about the
endless life?" I should be hard put to make a reply. Freemasonry does not
teach anything about it after the manner of an old-fashioned church
catechism, but all its rites and ceremonies, its spirit and its laws are
filled with immortality as the sky is suffused with light. Immortality is
the motif of the Masonic symphony.

There is one word to be
said in addition. In the great drama of the Third Degree there are things
done and said that give one a new and enlarged conception of everlasting
life. The initiate has it brought home to him that if there are some things
which abide forever, so that they are undestroyed by all the deaths that
are, it is possible to search out such things now, and to mould his life
about them, and give them the place of control at the centre of the heart,
so that one can live the eternal life in the midst of time. This is not
easily gained, as many a man has learned to his cost: there are ruffians at
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

the gates, lions in the path, and
often it will seem to one who seeks this Royal Secret that his days are
become a succession of deaths.

"He who flagged not in the earthly strife,

From strength to strength advancing—only he

His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,

Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.”

Chapter XIV

BROTHERLY LOVE EXPRESSING ITSELF IN BROTHERLY AID

It is one
of the principal uses of history that it enables us better to understand the
present. We are so intimately related to our world as it now is, and this
world is so complicated, that often it is quite impossible for us to form a
true conception of it. But after a few decades have passed, and our own
period detaches itself and becomes a unity, so that it can be viewed as a
whole and as a thing by itself, it becomes greatly simplified; multitudes of
bewildering details drop away, and it stands forth in its essentials, so
that the historian can grasp it in its true proportions and relations. In
this wise it often happens that in a certain true sense no age is understood
until it has taken its place in history. This fact itself in turn can be
brought about to enable one to view his own period as if it were a thing
past, for it often happens that we discover some earlier period to be so
like our own that to learn to understand that past period is to enable one's
self to understand one's own. All this, which seems so remote from the theme
of this chapter, is written to explain why I shall begin the study of
Brotherly Aid by a rapid sketch of a condition that developed itself among
the Roman people many centuries ago. That condition, I believe, was the same
in essentials as the condition in which we now live, so that by viewing it
as a whole we can the better understand the social world in which we find
ourselves.

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In the early days of the
Republic Roman life was a very stable thing, and Roman customs were almost
stationary. A man grew up in the house in which he was born; when he married
he brought his wife to live with him under the paternal roof; and when he
died he left his own sons abiding in the same place. Neighbouring families
were similarly stable, and all these groups, owing to this perpetual
neighbourliness and to intermarriage, became so in-woven with each other
that in a community there would be not one stranger. A man's life took root
in such a community like a tree and grew there permanently. The individual
was not left to his own private resources: he was surrounded by others who
were ever at hand to aid him in misfortune, nurse him in illness, and mourn
him in death. He was strong with the strength of his family and of his
neighbourhood, and this no doubt accounts for the sturdy manhood and
womanhood of the early Romans.

But there came a time
when the long enduring stability of Roman life was broken up. By gradual
degrees the Romans conquered adjoining territory. A great military system
was organised. Whole nations were brought into the Roman system. Alien
peoples flocked into Italy, and new religions established their headquarters
in the capital.

The Republic gave way to
the Empire, and the Senate succumbed to the Emperor. Great cities arose;
travel was made possible; and a feverish restlessness took the place of the
ancient stability. The old calm neighbourhood life was destroyed and in its
place there grew up a fermenting life in town and city. A man no longer
lived and died in the place of his birth, but moved about from community to
community, so that men became human tumbleweeds evermore shifting about from
place to place as the windy currents of chance might carry them. It came to
pass that a man lived a stranger in his own
BROTHERLY LOVE EXPRESSING ITSELF
133

neighbourhood, so that he scarce knew
the other persons living under the same roof. He was thrown back on his own
unaided individual resources in misfortune and in death. In the unequal
struggle he often became morally bankrupt, and the constant strain
undermined his health. It was for such causes that Rome ultimately fell.

In this situation men
set out about the creating of a bond that would take the place of the lost
neighbourhood ties. They organised themselves into Collegia. These groups
were formed of men engaged in the same trade, and they usually, in the early
days of their history, were principally devoted to securing for a man a
becoming burial service, the lack of which so filled a Roman with dread. But
in the course of time these organisations— we could justly call them
lodges—assumed more and more functions until at last a man found in them
charities, social life, business aid, religious influences, friendship, and
such other features of general protection as caused him to call his own
group My Mother Collegium. To live a stranger in a city was not longer a
thing to dread to a man who could find in such a fellowship the same
friendship and support that his forefather had secured in the old-time
neighbourhood.

It would be easy to
compare with the rise and development of the Collegia the rise and
development of the Church in the Middle Ages, for the latter came into
existence to serve similar purposes; but there is no need of this, because
the idea has already been made sufficiently clear. So is it also clear, I
trust, that we men of to-day are living under just such conditions as
brought the Collegia into existence, which is the one point of this
historical digression. The great majority of us are living in towns and
cities; and almost all of us are subject to the unsettling conditions that
shuttle us about from place to place, and from condition to condition, so
that life
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

has lost its firmness and security.
We live in streets where our next door neighbour is a stranger to us; or in
an apartment house or tenement where with dwellers on the same floor we have
no ties at all. Our industrial system is such that vast numbers of us are
ever moving about from one job to another, which fact is true also even of
the farmers, the majority of whom are tenants, and therefore migratory. In
the midst of such conditions the individual is often thrown wholly upon his
own resources which is such an unnatural thing that many break under it. The
restlessness and the ache of modern life are undoubtedly due in large
measure to these facts.

But it is here that the
lodge comes in, for the lodge, from this present point of view, is nothing
other than a substitute for the old-fashioned small community life wherein
neighbour was so tied to neighbour that there was no need of associated
charities, social centres, or employment bureaus. In a lodge a man need no
longer be a stranger: he finds there other men who, like himself, are eager
to establish friendships, engage in social intercourse, and pool the
resources of all in behalf of the needs of each. The fraternal tie redeems a
man from loneliness and from his old pitiable sense of helplessness, and
atones for a hundred other ills of city conditions. In his fraternal circle
is the warmth and security which a man needs if he is not to succumb to the
pressure of modern life. Little wonder is it that men so often think
secretly of their lodge as "my mother" and cherish for it until death a deep
regard that no profane can ever comprehend!

In the ample framework
of these facts one can see at a glance what Brotherly Aid really is. It is
the substitution of the friend for the stranger. It is a spirit which throws
round a man the comforts and securities of love. When "a worthy brother in
distress" is helped
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135

it is not as a pauper, as in the
necessarily cold fashion of public charity, but the kindly help which one
neighbour is always so glad to lend to another. Masonic charity is strong,
kindly, beautiful and tender, and not charity at all in the narrow grudging
sense of the word. Nay, it does not wait until a brother is in distress but
throws about him in his strength and prosperity the affectionate arm of
friendship without which life is cold and harsh. Friendship, fraternity,
fellowship—this is the soul of Freemasonry of which charity is but one
gesture with a thousand meanings.

Chapter XV

THE MASONIC CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE

If a man wishes to develop a swift
race horse he must first understand much about the nature of horses; if he
would build a powerful engine he must needs understand something of
mechanics; if he would build a house he must have at least a working
knowledge of building materials, of proportion, of stresses and strains, and
what not. Similarly, he who undertakes to work with men must, unless he
wishes to invite certain failure, understand something of human nature,
which is to say, what kind of a being man is, what can be done with him,
what one may hope from him. It is safe to say that the largest number of
attempts to reform and improve man fail because of ignorance concerning
human nature.

The science which deals
with human nature, which asks what man is, how he came to be, what his
destiny is, is known as Anthropology.

There is such a thing as
a Masonic Anthropology, or Science of Man. Masonry deals with men: it is
trying to do certain things with men, to shape them in a certain way; and by
certain means. Unless Masonry understands the nature of men, and is able to
deal successfully with that nature, it will as surely fail as the man fails
who tries to operate a farm without any knowledge of agriculture.

What kind of a being is
man, as Masonry understands him? It is quite impossible to give any adequate
answer

136

MASONIC CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE
137

to this question inside the limits of
so brief a chapter as this. It is quite impossible even barely to mention
all of the most elementary features of such an answer. We are compelled to
deal in generalities, and very briefly at that.

We may say, first of
all, that to Masonry man is a being that can be educated. This is implied in
the Masonic ritual from end to end, and it is taken for granted in every
phase of Masonic teachings. The candidate comes in the dark, ignorant, a
child, needing to be led about by a guide, and cared for by patient
guardians. At the end of initiation he stands on his own feet, he sees the
light, he has in him a new vision, a new nature. Under the veil of symbolism
the novice is presented as a shapeless stone, or Rough Ashlar, fresh from
the quarry. When the "work" is done he is a Perfect Ashlar, a stone hewn and
finished, ready for its place in the wall. If this can happen to a man
inside the lodge room it can happen outside; if a man can be born again
under Masonic influences, he can also be born again under other equally
powerful influences. To Masonry man is not a static being; he is educable,
and by educable is meant, not that every man can be given a school training,
but that man, by-his nature, is capable of growth, of improvement, of
development.

This view of human
nature is optimistic, and it is therefore unfortunate that all cannot hold
it. But such is the case, for there are many who cling to some form of
fatalism about man. These may not believe that man's life is fixed by the
stars, as the astrologers once believed, but it amounts to the same thing.
They may believe that before man was created God pre-ordained all the
details of his life; or they may with certain scientists, hold that man's
life is wholly shaped by environment; or they may think that accident or
luck shapes all. In any event these
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

persons hold that man is a being
helpless to change himself; if he is strong he can never become weak; if he
is weak he can never become strong: man is a static being, of a fixed and
unchangeable nature; what he is, that he had to be, and will ever remain.

To the Mason this is a
cardinal error. He is under no illusions about human nature. He knows how
weak we all are; how much viciousness remains in the most saintly nature;
how ignorant the average human being is and will always remain. He knows how
often man is his own worst enemy; how the generality prefer to be governed
by others rather than by themselves. Knowing all this, a wise Mason will not
expect the impossible but he will expect that to the pleadings of a right
influence most men will respond, and he believes that we should do all we
can to improve human life even though we can never make it perfect, or even
satisfactory. More than that, a Mason believes that on the whole the race
progresses, and that in the long hereafter of the race's life men and women
will reach levels of development now unattainable. Human nature, as hinted
forth by all the devices of "progress symbolism" scattered through the three
degrees, is not static, stationary, fixed in its present form, like a cast
of iron.

Nor does Masonry teach
that human nature is a depraved thing, like the ruin of a once proud
building. Many think that man was once a perfect being but that through some
unimaginable moral catastrophe he became corrupt unto the last moral fibre
of his being, so that, without some kind of supernatural or miraculous help
from outside him, he can never of himself do, or say, or think, or be aught
but that which is deformed, vile, hideous. Those who hold to this kind of
anthropology usually claim to know how supernatural help may be brought to
bear on that corruption which is human na
MASONIC CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE
139

ture, and they usually believe
themselves to be of the party which controls that help, and they also
usually believe that only those who accept supernatural intervention
according to their own formula have any hope whatever of escaping from the
original sin into which every man is born.

An individual Mason here
and there may hold this "depravity view" of human nature: that the Order
itself does not hold it, or countenance it, is abundantly proven by the
ritual, and by all our Masonic principles. Masonry bases itself on the
organisation and control of those very forces in human society which are
most natural:—charity, association, mutual help, and all the thousand moral
influences which play ceaselessly about the human being. It is true that the
lesson in the Third Degree is the lesson of regeneration: the candidate
comes as one whose old self must die in order that a new self may be born;
but this new life into which the candidate is born is not in any sense
supernatural.

We live in certain fixed
relations. God is, and we are bound to Him in a thousand ways. Nature is
omnipresent, and to live is to live in relationship with her. Always there
are other human beings about us, and always will there be. To live in
harmony with God, man and nature, is happiness. It is wisdom. It is
mastership. The Master-man, the Master Mason, is not one who has been
granted a few secrets in some miserable occultism as some vainly believe and
teach; he is one who has so mastered and organised the fixed and universal
facts and conditions of normal human life that he is happy in his living. He
could not be happy in his every-day life if he believed his nature itself to
be corrupt. He has too much common sense to believe that in this world all
is as it should be. He sees no reason for postponing life until he has
somehow evolved into super
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

manhood. He takes life and the world
as he finds them, and does the best he can with them.

Man is not an angel. He
is not a perfect being whose faults are always due to an unfriendly
environment, nor is he a debased, rotted creature, wallowing in mire until
touched by the arbitrary grace of some supernatural power. Nor is his nature
in a state of flux, so that he may be human now, and something other than
human after millions of years. We cannot learn what man is by the long
roundabout of some abstract theory. We must take him as he is. He cannot be
taught much, but he can be taught. He is incapable of receiving much light,
but he is able to use his intellect a little. He can never be an ideal
friend or brother, but he is always capable of some brotherhood. He has
plenty of selfishness, cupidity, lust, ignorance in him; but he has a lot of
nobility in him for all that. Only a sentimentalist will abandon his part in
the uplift of man merely because that enterprise always fails. Because a
mature Mason has the common-sense view of human nature he will never expect
too much of the world by way of charity, brotherhood, enlightenment and the
like, but even so he will toil faithfully all his days to those great ends,
knowing that human nature is capable of great things.

Chapter XVI

"LET THERE BE LIGHT”

A candidate enters the
Masonic lodge room in thick darkness. There is no light within him, and
there is none about him. His progress from station to station is a quest of
illumination; he passes from degree to degree seeking more light: when at
last the scales fall from his eyes, and the illumination comes, the whole
lodge greets the event with a battery of exclamation. The sun, the moon and
the stars move through the symbolism of the three degrees in the same manner
that they pass through the houses of the sky. References to daybreak and
dusk, to midnight and to the meridian day, are omnipresent throughout the
ritual. Learned men debate with each other concerning the origins of this
element in our symbolism, many believing it has descended to us from the
Light Religions of the ancient world. Be that as it may, all Masons
understand that light is nothing other than the symbol of truth and
knowledge, and the prevalence of that symbolism is an indication of the
importance to be attached to truth and knowledge in any study of the greater
teachings of the Fraternity.

William Preston, to whom
the Craft is so much indebted, and who largely shaped the Second Degree as
we now have it, believed it to be the chief end of Masonry to instil wisdom
and convey knowledge. Under his hand the lodge became a schoolroom; the
Master, a teacher; the candidate, a pupil. In more or less orderly fashion a
whole system of learning was set forth, ranging from

141

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THE GREAT
TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

the five senses to the fine arts, and
it was made abundantly clear that no man can remain a genuine Mason who
holds truth lightly or chooses to remain in ignorance. The liar and the
ignoramus may somehow get into Masonry, but no Masonry can get into them.

There is a difference
between "truth" and "knowledge," it goes without saying, and that difference
is not often lost to sight by the ritual, but on the whole our system uses
the two words interchangeably. Truth is sought for the sake of life. We
human beings are set in the midst of a world every element of which is
ceaselessly influencing us. Nature is not an inert background, but a system
of positive forces; the sun warms us; the rain falls on us; our existence is
bound up with natural processes. Other human beings impinge upon us, their
lives interacting with ours. In our own selves, in our mind, body, emotions,
volitions, forces are tirelessly at play. A human being cannot stand
immovable and uninfluenced in the midst of life as a rock stands in the wash
of the tide. His life goes on every moment influencing and being influenced.
And life is full and rich, happiness comes, when we so understand ourselves,
and the world, and the forces of nature that we can harmoniously adjust
ourselves thereto. The report of what nature, the world, life really are,
that is truth; and the items of information which we need to have in order
to know the truth, that is knowledge. A wise man desires truth and seeks
knowledge, not in order to pose as a scholar or a learned man, but in order
that he may live happily.

How a man finds
knowledge is a matter of comparative indifference; he may learn from books,
or he may never read a page; he may attend school or not; he may gain
information by himself or from a master. That is for the man's own choosing,
and Masonry offers no
"LET THERE BE LIGHT"
143

recipe for an education. But
enlightenment is a thing every Mason stands pledged to seek, and seek it he
must if he is to be a Mason in fact as well as in name.

From the point of view
of Masonry, ignorance is a sin. Usually a man excuses himself for his
ignorance by saying, "I had no opportunities. I have had to work since a
child. I could not go to school." This self-justification is a fallacy all
through, not only because many men have won a schooling in spite of poverty,
but because one may gain an education without going to school at all. We
have night schools, free public libraries, daily papers, magazines, cheap
books, and countless agencies which fairly beg men to learn. Moreover, if a
man is not content to remain in ignorance, he can always learn from
experience, observation, and from his work. Considering how ample are the
opportunities to learn knowledge and truth, there is no excuse for
ignorance, and the only reason for it is that a man is too lazy, or prefers
darkness to light. Usually it is his indolence that is to blame. Ignorance
is sin.

I recently asked of the
manager of a considerable business enterprise, "From which do you suffer the
more, the dishonesty of your employees, or their general ignorance,
indifference, stupidity?" "What we suffer from their dishonesty," he
replied, "is as nothing from what we lose by their lack of knowing how to
work, and knowing this business. Deliver me from the ignorance of the
majority of men. Business suffers a thousand times more from stupidity than
from dishonesty!" The whole world suffers from men's ignorance. Children
grow up diseased and unhappy because mothers and fathers undertake a family
without learning anything about the right care of children. The same
children leave school with half-taught minds because so few school teachers
understand teaching. They embark in business and found families
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

of their own through which to
perpetuate their own lack of knowledge, and thus does the world go on.
Ignorance is a sin because of the unhappiness it causes in human life.

It is a good thing for a
great institution like the church to wage its war on viciousness and
deliberate wrong. It is equally a good thing for a great institution like
our Fraternity to make war on that mental darkness which breeds quite as
much evil in the world as the corruptions of conscience.

Truth must be sought
for. It is not an entity lying outside us, like a boulder on the path, but a
living and changing thing, which must evermore be possessed anew, a fact
which is so hauntingly bodied forth in our legend of the Lost Word, and our
search therefor. Each man must win it for himself, such is the law, for it
is not a commodity which can be handed by one man to another, though there
are countless ways in which we can help each other to find the light. The
institution which supposes itself to have discovered all truth, and to have
it neatly organised into a creed, which may be received from it second-hand,
as one may receive a legacy, is an institution that is deceiving itself and
its followers. No institution has captured the whole truth; none ever can.
No man can come into possession of the light by signing his name to a creed.
Masonry has no creed. For each one of us men the truth is as a word that is
lost, and each of us must himself go in search for it.

When Charles Darwin
called our attention to a whole set of new facts about the development of
living beings hosts of men turned on the great naturalist with revilings.
They had already made up their minds about the origin of life. They were
hoodwinked by their own theories. The man who makes up his mind about a
thing before he has learned sufficient about it is a man that wears a
blindfold and cannot see. To be open-minded; to be
"LET THERE BE LIGHT"
145

willing both to learn and unlearn; to
be glad to revise one's old theories in order to conform to newly learned
facts; and not to be afraid to depart from the crowd on its beaten path if
the light leads in new directions—all this is necessary if one is to be a
truthseeker, and it is all suggested to us by the symbol of the hoodwink.

A man must free himself
if he is to find light; also must be glad and willing that others be equally
free. If I must have a free mind then, by token of the same requirements, my
neighbour must have a free mind, and I shall be glad to give him the rights
of a free mind, unless I am a fool and a bigot. This is toleration.
Toleration does not mean that one idea is as good as another, or that one
truth is as important as another. Neither does it mean (this should be
thrice underscored) that one is indifferent to all ideas or theories, as
though it matters not what men believe. When toleration lapses into a mere
indifference it becomes a vicious thing. The real meaning of toleration is,
When a man goes in search of his Lost Word, let him choose his own path, and
place no obstacles in the path followed by others.

But it has a greater
meaning than that. The greater truths are always too vast to be won by a
single mind; always must a group of thinkers work together in close
co-operation. Toleration means that every such group be left free in its
endeavours. It is just here that one finds the church's most frequent crimes
of intolerance. When Vesalius and his Renaissance contemporaries were
working to discover the facts about the human body the church hampered them
and thwarted them at every turn. The same thing happened to the geographers
who explored and mapped the earth; to Newton and his colleagues who built up
the science of physics; to Descartes and his contemporaries in philosophy;
to Paracelsus and his successors in medicine, and to Charles Darwin and
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

the group of nineteenth-century
biologists of whom he was chief. The same thing is happening to-day to the
group of sociologists who are trying to learn the truth about the structure
of human society. It is bad enough when some individual is forbidden to
think for himself, but it is far worse, it looms up as a crime against the
race, when the race's own best thinkers, scientists, inventors,
investigators, are prevented from carrying out in action that work from
which alone we can learn the truth about ourselves and the world.

Mankind can never
discover the whole of truth. Always and always it opens before us, like an
ever-receding goal; and evermore must we continue to seek it, even as the
Masonic candidate, helped in such ways as is possible, and amid many
obstacles, gradually through the darkness makes his "progress" from station
to station, from degree to degree, seeking light, and more light, and that
mystic Word which is truth itself.

Chapter XVII

THE MASONIC CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION

There were
no schools when Freemasonry came into existence. Mediæval Europe had much
learning but no great public institutions for the diffusing of it. There
were a few seminaries where men might receive an "education" for the
priesthood, and there were, here and there, a few monasteries, nunneries,
brotherhoods, lay organisations, and what not, which dispensed to a handful
of young people the rudiments of knowledge. Of schools as they now exist,
and have existed for two or three hundred years, there were none. Nor was
there in any community a daily press, or weekly periodicals, or a library,
or cheap books, or a learned society, or a correspondence school.

But there was such a
thing as education, often of a high type, and sometimes of a degree never
afterwards excelled, for the Mediaevalists gave us the greatest architecture
that has ever been known, and some of the greatest pictures, and much
wonderful sculpture, not to mention the flowering out of the religious
spirit: these gifts could not come from an ignorant and debased people, such
as the mediaevalists are by many often supposed to have been. To erect a St.
Mark's, or a St. Peter's, to build such a city as Venice, or to paint such
pictures as those of Tintoretto, or to conceive the ideal and spirit of the
Franciscan movement required a trained intelligence, a directed and fruitful
genius, which can only come from

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that discipline of the human nature
that we know as "education.”

If the people had no
schools, whence came such an education? The answer to this question is found
in the system of apprenticeship which was in universal use with

those guilds and brotherhoods that
built Venice, and erected the cathedrals, and painted the pictures, and
created the sculptures. Instead of going into a public school the youth went
into a guild. Instead of studying from a teacher who sits behind a desk with
a book in his hand, the mediæval student learned from a master in the very
operations of work. Instead of receiving a diploma on sheepskin he was given
the means of proving to anybody that he was himself a master workman,
entitled to receive a master's wages wherever he might go.

Put yourself in the
place of some mediæval architect entrusted with work on one of the huge
cathedrals which, once completed, became at once the wonder and despair of
all subsequent builders. You had to have skilled workmen. You were compelled
to find men who knew how to hew stone properly out of a quarry, how to dress
it in the rough, how to read plans, how to solve geometrical problems, how
to carve, to erect scaffoldings, to round an arch, throw up a spire, and
also, in many cases, how to organise and direct other workmen. Where would
you find such men? You would draw from the ranks of intelligent youths such
as gave promise of skill and you would very carefully have them trained in
all these processes, and, because many of these processes were valuable
trade secrets, you would take great care to bind these youths to you in a
secrecy from which knowledge might not escape clandestinely to the outside
world.

The necessity for
educating youths into the extremely difficult art of fine building was one
of the causes which led to the founding of Freemasonry. Because of this
THE MASONIC CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION
149

necessity the trade union grew into a
lodge. Members were bound together by solemn ties, and local organisations
were compelled to affiliate themselves together into a wide brotherhood of
workmen.

The student was called
an "apprentice," or "learner," for such does the word mean in nearly all
languages. There were no books wherewith to teach him, so his masters taught
him by means of the work itself, and the tools and practices used in the
work. And since these students had to live together in closest unity it was
necessary also to train them in morality, for without morality there can be
no permanent association. And because these young men were to work on
religious buildings being erected by religious organisations it was
inevitable that religion should come to have a central place in the scheme
of education. In all this we have the beginnings and the conditions out of
which Freemasonry arose.

When Operative Masonry
reached that stage in its history wherein it became transformed gradually
into Speculative, or Symbolical Masonry, learning, or knowledge, or
enlightenment (one may use any of these terms), had come to be at the core
of it. But since the knowledge of actual building arts was no longer of any
purpose to the members of the Fraternity the old "work" was gradually
transformed into symbols and allegory, and the "apprentice" in the new order
of things was set to learn the art of building manhood and brotherhood.

In the early eighteenth
century when the old Operative Craft was made over into the Symbolical
institution as we now know it, it happened that one of the major prophets of
the new day, William Preston, was burning with an enthusiasm for education,
a thing I have already referred to. There were schools in England for the
sons of a few rich, but no school for the masses, and among those young men
who found their way into the transformed
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Masonry there were few with any
education at all. Preston said, "Let us then make the lodge into a
schoolroom. While we are making Masons of these youths let us at the same
time give them the rudiments of knowledge." So he worked out an elaborate
system of lectures in which were set forth something of all the subjects
between the five senses and the fine arts. The Second Degree as it now
stands is to a great extent the result and abiding memorial of that noble
endeavour. When Freemasonry first came into existence in the form recognised
as such by us it was very largely an educational institution. When it found
its great rebirth in England during the Grand Lodge era it rapidly became a
centre of knowledge. It has searched for "light" from the beginning; it has
always inculcated in its devotees a desire for "more light"—to-day it
continues to hold up as its ideal of human perfection the man of
"enlightenment." Therefore this emphasis which to-day we place on the need
for light is not a hatched-up, pseudo-emphasis, but a passion deeply rooted
in the very nature of our Order, and inseparable from it.

What is true of
Masonry's attitude toward education is equally true of its attitude toward
that institution which has come to be the custodian of education, the public
school. Those who wonder why we Masons should keep so watchful an eye upon
every educational enterprise may any time satisfy their wonder by a careful
study of the birth, the growth, and the culmination of our Fraternity.

It would be quite
useless, as many another essayist has learnt to his sorrow, to attempt to
fashion a definition of education, for it is one of those fundamental and
profound conceptions which defy analysis and escape words: but even so it is
a thing that we recognise without understanding it and describe without
defining. There was a time when by "education" men referred
THE MASONIC CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION
151

to a fixed body of knowledge,
inherited from past times, crowned by tradition and approved by authority,
which was gotten into the minds of students by a certain fixed method. This
quantum of knowledge was supposed to be invariably suited to all minds,
whatever their cast or bent, and the boy who could not master it was thereby
catalogued among the dunces or the shirks. There was a great deal more truth
in that old conception of education than the present-day reformers are
willing to admit, but even so it is a conception which we must abandon.
There is no such thing as a quantum of knowledge the acquirement of which
constitutes an education, for education, so the psychologists have made us
see, is quite another kind of thing.

A human being comes into
this world quite helpless and quite ignorant. He is so dependent on others
that the word "baby" is almost synonymous with the word "helplessness." He
cannot talk; or read, or walk, or work, or feed, or clothe himself—a being
more abjectly helpless it would be hard to imagine. An adult man, on the
other hand, if he be normal in all ways, must be able to work so well that
the world will pay him money for it. He must be able to make his wants felt,
his thoughts known, and his qualities appreciated. He has a wife to cherish,
a family to support, a home to maintain. He must know something of the
functions of citizenship. He must be able to take his place with his fellows
in all the thousand activities of normal life.

It is education that
bridges over the wide gulf between the helplessness of the babe and the
manifold capabilities of the adult nature. Parents, insofar as they are
tutors of their own children, schools, books, teachers, and the individual's
own experience, are all so many instruments of education, and it matters
little how a man secures education so long as he is an adult able to fulfil
all his normal
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

functions in the various
relationships of life. What particular kinds of knowledge a man must have,
whether it be Latin and Greek, literature, science, philosophy, civics, what
not, depends on the nature of a man himself and upon the conditions under
which he has to live his life. Anything is good education that enables us to
be happy in our life environment.

From this it will be
seen that education is by its own inherent nature a social thing. It is
something that prepares a man to live with his fellows, to work with them
and for them, to understand them, to get on well with them. It is a thing
that makes possible the fulfilment of the fragrant saying that it is a good
and beautiful thing for brethren to dwell together in unity. And since
education is by its nature a social thing, a thing fraught with all the
fates of society, then it is perfectly self-evident that education must be
defined and managed by society itself, and for society's own good. To permit
any group to turn education into an anti-social engine, so that it functions
against all in the favour of a few, is as foolish a thing as to turn loose
upon society all the hordes of confusion, anarchy, and war.

It is because of this
fact that Freemasonry is so keenly interested in and concerned for "the
education of all the children of all the people." The "Temple" which the
Craft is building is nothing other than the human family living happily
together. The equality and democracy for which it has ever stood is nothing
other than its preaching of the fact that men and women are by nature
brethren and should live together as such. If there are any educational
agencies, or any types of education, upon which Freemasonry wages a tireless
war, it is because those agencies are promulgating an education which
teaches men that we are not all brethren, and that it is not wise for us all
to try to live together in harmony. Any in
THE MASONIC CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION
153

stitution which insists upon
democracy as Freemasonry insists upon it must everlastingly be concerned
much with the institutions of education. Like schools, like people.

An institution which
demands so high an educational ideal on the part of the outside world
should, so it would seem, itself set a shining example. This is the whole
pith and contention of those organisations like the National Masonic
Research Society of this country and the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in England,
and many others that might be mentioned, which exist to further the cause of
Masonic education. There is no known way whereby, through a kind of magic,
we can find light in Masonry. If a man wishes to learn something of history,
he studies it; so if a man would learn Freemasonry he must study it.
Initiation is no occult process whereby, without the exercise of his own
faculties, and minus the necessary acquisitions of knowledge, a man may be
conducted into the full glow of truth, Masonic or otherwise. Those who would
become real Masons must work to that end—the light does not come
miraculously but at the end of a toilsome way. There is a vast deal—far, far
more than most men dream—of knowledge and truth hidden away in our
traditions, our history, our customs, our laws, and, above all, in our
incomparable ritual, but a man can no more become possessed of that treasure
without working for it, than he can come into an understanding of Greek
without studying it. Masonic Research does not mean a delving into the dust
bins of antiquity for rare lore—it means a digging out of Masonry that which
there is now in it for truth, and for light.

These sentences may
sound like broad generalisations, but if so, they are generalisations of
facts that are real enough. To some of us it seems a sin and a shame that
hundreds of lodges do not scruple to push a man from one degree to another
until he has had them all,
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

and all the badges that go with them,
without so much as an effort made to tell him what it all means, without so
much as a step taken toward leading him into a realisation of all that he
has experienced. No wonder that there are Masons who have nothing of Masonry
save the name!

Chapter XVIII

TYPICAL SCHOOLS OF MASONIC PHILOSOPHY

"Lectures
on the Philosophy of Freemasonry,"* by Roscoe Pound, of the Law School of
Harvard University, is the book wherewith to begin a study of the Philosophy
of Masonry in a technical and systematic manner. The book is not bulky, and
the language is simple, so that a novice need have no difficulties in
reading it. I value this little manual so highly that I shall bring this
series of studies of the Great Teachings of Freemasonry to conclusion by
giving a rapid review of its contents, the same to be followed by reference
to two or three schools not canvassed by Brother Pound, and by a suggestion
of my own concerning Masonic philosophy.

The eighteenth century
in England was a period of comparative quiet, despite the blow-up that came
at the end of it, and men ceased very generally to quarrel over fundamental
matters. It was a period of formalism when more attention was paid to manner
than to matter. Also, and this is most important, it was everywhere believed
that knowledge is the greatest thing in the world and must therefore be the
one aim of all endeavour.

William Preston was a
true child of his century in these things, and he gave to Freemasonry a
typical eighteenth century interpretation. This is especially seen in our
Second Degree, most of which came from his hands, or at least took shape
under his influence, for in that ceremony knowledge is made the great object
of Masonic

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MASONRY

endeavour. The Fellowcraft lectures
consist of a series of courses in instruction in the arts and sciences after
the fashion of school-room discourses. "For what does Masonry exist? What is
the end and purpose of the order? Preston would answer: To diffuse light,
that is, to spread knowledge among men." In criticising this position
Brother Pound has the following provocative words to say: "Preston of course
was wrong—knowledge is not the sole end of Masonry. But in another way
Preston was right. Knowledge is one end—at least one proximate end—and it is
not the least of those by which human perfection shall be attained.
Preston's mistakes were the mistakes of his century—the mistake of faith in
the finality of what was known to that era, and the mistake of regarding
correct formal presentation as the one sound method of instruction. But what
shall be said of the greater mistake we make to-day, when we go on reciting
his lectures—shorn and abridged till they mean nothing to the hearer—and
gravely presenting them as a system of Masonic knowledge? . . . I hate to
think that all initiative is gone from our Order and that no new Preston
will arise to take up his conception of knowledge as an end of the
Fraternity and present to the Masons of to-day the knowledge which they
ought to possess.”

Of a very different
cast, both as to intellectual equipment and moral nature, was Karl Christian
Friedrich Krause, born near Leipzig in 1781, the founder of the great school
of Masonic thought of which Ahrens afterwards became so powerful an
exponent. During the period in which Krause grew up conceptions of the human
race and of human life underwent a profound change: thinkers abandoned their
allegiance to the Roman Catholic theological leaders of the Middle Ages with
their dependence on supernatural ideas and resumed the principal idea of the
classical Greek and Roman scientists and
TYPICAL SCHOOLS OF MASONIC PHILOSOPHY
157

jurists which was that man must be
known for what he is actually found to be and dealt with accordingly. The
goal of all endeavours, according to this modern way of thinking, is the
betterment of human life in the interest of men and women themselves—a
vastly different conception from that of the Middle Ages, which was that
human life must be twisted and hewn to fit a scheme of things lying outside
of human life. Krause believed that Freemasonry exists in order to help
perfect the human race. Our Fraternity should work in co-operation with the
other institutions, such as Government, School, Church, etc., all of which
exist for the same purpose. According to what principles should Masonry be
governed in seeking to attain this end? Krause answers: "Masonry has to deal
with the internal conditions of life governed by reason. Hence its
fundamental principles are measurement and restraint—measurement by reason
and restraint by reason—and it teaches these as a means of achieving
perfection.”

Contemporaneous with
Krause, but of a type strikingly different, was the Rev. George Oliver,
whose teachings so universally influenced English and American Masonic
thought a half century ago. Romanticism (understood as the technical name of
a school of thought) was the centre of his thinking, as religion was the
centre of his heart. Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the most eloquent
literary interpreter of the period, Oliver rebelled against the dry
intellectualism of the eighteenth century in behalf of speculation and
imagination; he insisted that reason make way for intuition and faith; he
attached a very high value to tradition: and he was very eager to reconcile
Christianity with philosophy.

"What then are Oliver's
answers to the three fundamental questions of Masonic philosophy?

"1. What is the end of
Masonry? For what does the
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Institution exist? Oliver would
answer, it is one in its end with religion and with science. Each of these
are means through which we are brought into relation with the absolute. They
are the means through which we know God and his works.

"2. How does Masonry
seek to achieve its end? Oliver would answer, by preserving, handing down
and interpreting a tradition of immemorial antiquity, a pure tradition from
the childhood of the race.

"3. What are the
fundamental principles by which Masonry is governed in achieving its task?
Oliver would say, the fundamental principles of Masonry are essentially the
principles of religion as the basic principles of the moral world. But in
Masonry they appear in a traditional form. Thus, for example, toleration in
Masonry is a form of what in religion we call charity; universality in
Masonry is a traditional form of what in religion we call love of one's
neighbour.”

Albert Pike was during a
large part of his life contemporaneous with Oliver and Krause, and
consequently grew up in the same thought world, but for all that he worked
out an interpretation of Masonry radically different from others. In spite
of all his studies in antiquity and in forgotten philosophies and religions,
Pike, at the

bottom of his mind, attacked the
problems of Masonic thought as though no other man before him had ever heard
of them. He was impatient of traditions, often scornful of other opinions,
and as for the dogmas and shibboleths of the schools he would have nothing
of them. What is genuinely real? That was the great question of his
thinking: and accordingly his interpretation of Freemasonry took the form of
a metaphysic. He was more interested in nature than in function.

"1. What is the end of
Masonry? What is the purpose for which it exists? Pike would answer: The im
TYPICAL SCHOOLS OF MASONIC PHILOSOPHY
159

mediate end is the pursuit of light.
But light means here attainment of the fundamental principle of the universe
and bringing of ourselves into harmony, the ultimate unity which alone is
real. Hence the ultimate end is to lead us to the Absolute—interpreted by
our individual creed if we like, but recognised as the final unity into
which all things merge and with which in the end all things must accord. You
will see here at once a purely philosophical version of what, with Oliver,
was purely religious.

"2. What is the relation
of Masonry to other human institutions and particularly to the state and to
religion? He would answer, it seeks to interpret them to us, to make them
more vital for us, to make them more efficacious for their purposes by
showing the ultimate reality of which they are manifestations. It teaches us
that there is but one Absolute and that everything short of that Absolute is
relative; is but a manifestation, so that creeds and dogmas, political or
religious, are but interpretations. It teaches us to make our own
interpretation for ourselves. It teaches us to save ourselves by finding for
ourselves the ultimate principle by which we shall come to the real. In
other words, it is the universal Institution of which other spiritual, moral
and social institutions are local and temporary phases.

"3. How does Masonry
seek to reach these ends? He would say, by a system of allegories and of
symbols handed down from antiquity which we are to study and upon which we
are to reflect until they reveal the light to each of us individually.
Masonry preserves these symbols and acts out these allegories for us. But
the responsibility of reaching the real through them is upon each of us.
Each of us has the duty of using this wonderful heritage from antiquity for
himself. Masonry in Pike's view does not offer us predigested food. It
offers us a
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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

wholesome fare which we must digest
for ourselves. But what a feast! It is nothing less than the whole history
of human search for reality. And through it he conceives, through mastery of
it, we shall master the universe.”

Brother Pound, it seems
to me, might well have included in his survey two other well-defined
schools, one of which, it is probable, is destined to out-do all its
predecessors in influence. I refer to the Historical School and to the
Mystical School, neither of which thus far has developed a leader worthy of
conferring his own name on his group, though it may be said that Robert
Freke Gould and Arthur Edward Waite are typical representatives,
respectively, of these two groups.

The fundamental tenet of
the historical school is that Freemasonry interprets itself through its own
history. This history is not broken into separate fragments, but is
continuous and progressive throughout so that the unfolding story of Masonry
is a gradual revelation of the nature of Masonry. Would you know what
Masonry actually is, apart from what in the theory of men it appears to
be?—Read its history. Would you know what is the future of Masonry?—Trace
out the tracks of its past development, and from them you can plot the
curves of its future developments. Would you discover what are the ideals
and possibilities of the Fraternity?—Study to learn what it has been trying
to do in the past and is now trying to do.

This philosophy makes a
profound appeal to men in this day when science, with its interest in
history, development and evolution, rules in the fields of thought, and I
have no doubt that more and more it will be found necessary for the leaders
of present-day Masonry to master the history of past Masonry, especially
because Masonry,
TYPICAL SCHOOLS OF MASONIC PHILOSOPHY
161

more than most institutions, derives
from and is dependent on its own past.

Nevertheless, in Masonry
as in all other fields, philosophy cannot be made identical with history for
the reason that such a method does not provide for new developments. If some
mighty leader—another Albert Pike, for example—were to arise now and give
the course of Masonic evolution an entirely new twist, what could the
historians do about it? Nothing. They would have no precedents to go by. An
adequate philosophy must understand the nature of Masonry by insight and
intuition as well as by history. Also, Masonry must not shut itself away
from the creative genius of new leaders, else it petrify itself into
immobile sterility, and condemn itself to the mere repetition of its own
past. A great public institution must evermore work in the midst of the
world and constantly learn to apply itself to its own new tasks as they
arise in the world; otherwise it becomes no institution at all, but the
plaything of a little coterie.

Of the school of Masonic
Mysticism it is more difficult to speak, and this partly for the reason that
mysticism itself, by virtue of its own inner nature, cannot become clearly
articulate but must utter itself darkly by hints and symbols. On the one
side mysticism is ever tending to become occultism; on the other side it has
close affinities with theology. All three words—mysticism, occultism, and
theology—are frequently used interchangeably in such wise as to cause great
confusion of thought. Owing to this shuffling of use and meaning of its own
ideas and terms the school of Masonic mysticism has thus far not been able
to wrest itself free from entangling alliances in order to stand
independently on its own feet as an authentic interpreter of the Great
Teachings of the Craft.

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GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

But in spite of all these
handicaps a few of our scholars have been able to give us a tolerably
consistent and, in some cases, a very noble account of Freemasonry in the
terms of mysticism. Notable among these is Brother A. E. Waite, whose
volume, "Studies in Mysticism," is not as widely known as it should be.

To Brother Waite—unless
I have sadly misread him, a thing not at all impossible, for he is not
always easy to follow—the inner and living stuff of all religion consists of
mysticism; and mysticism is a first-hand experience of things Divine, the
classical examples of which are the great mystics among whom Plotinus, St.
Francis, St. Theresa, Ruysbroeck, and St. Rose of Lima may be named as
typical. According to the mystical hypothesis the spiritual experience of
these geniuses in religion gives us an authentic report of the Unseen and is
as much to be relied on as any flesh-and-blood report of the Seen; but
unfortunately the realities of the Unseen are ineffable, consequently they
cannot be described to the ordinary non-mystical person at all except in the
language of ritual and symbolism. It is at this point that Freemasonry comes
in. According to the theory our Order is an instituted form of mysticism, in
the ceremonies and symbols of which men may find, if they care to follow
them, the roads that lead to a direct and first-hand experience of God.

If I may come at last to
speak for myself I believe that there is now shaping in our midst, and will
some day come to the front, a Masonic philosophy that will not quarrel with
these great schools but will at the same time replace them by a larger and
more complete synthesis. I have no idea what this school will be called. It
will be human, social, and pragmatic, and it will exist for use rather than
show. It will not strive to carry the Masonic institution to some goal
beyond and outside of humanity
TYPICAL SCHOOLS OF MASONIC PHILOSOPHY
163

but will see in Freemasonry a wise
and well-equipped means of enriching human life as it now is and in this
present familiar world. We men do not exist to glorify the angels or to
realise some superhuman scheme remote from us. Human life is an end in
itself, and it is the first duty of men to live happily, freely, joyously,
and bravely. This is God's own purpose for us, and, unless all modern
religious thinking has gone hopelessly astray, God's life and ours are so
bound up together that His purposes and His will coincide with our own great
human aims. When man is completely man God's will - will then be done.

As things now are we men
and women have not yet learned how to live happily with each other, and
there is a great lack of human charity under the sun. Why can't we learn to
know ourselves and each other and our world in such wise as to organise
ourselves together into a human family living happily together? That, it
seems to me, should be the great object of Freemasonry.

Chapter XIX

ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONIC SYMBOLS

DR. ALBERT
G. MACKEY came at a critical time in the development of American Freemasonry
when it was in danger of being disrupted from without, and in an equal

danger of
being unintentionally destroyed by its own members out of their lack of
knowledge about its history, Landmarks, laws, and Ritual.

He became so alarmed by
this double danger that he dropped his medical practice and renounced a
public career in national office to give himself wholly to furnish the
knowledge which he knew was necessary to the continuing existence and future
growth of the Craft. He knew that the one all-important need was a complete
encyclopedia of knowledge of Masonry by Masons. so he read and studied
through whole literatures, ancient and medieval, and modern, and the
mountainous mass of material he thus accumulated he worked over into a
series of books which, because they were hewn from the same rocks, are, and
despite the variety in them from one subject to another, as a whole almost a
single work: The Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry; The History Of Freemasonry, in
seven volumes; The Symbolism of Freemasonry; The Jurisprudence Of
Freemasonry; and The Parliamentary Law Of Freemasonry.

The substance of what he
had to say about the Ritual and the Symbols was embodied in his book on
Symbolism. It is no longer to be taken, as for many years it was taken, as
an authoritative work in the sense of being almost officially endorsed by
Grand Lodges; nor is it to be taken as the sum of Masonic teachings, as once
it was; but it is the best represen

164

ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONIC SYMBOLS
165

tative of the school of thought about
symbols which interprets them in the light of the Ancient Mysteries. There
is much to be said for that school and ever will be, and for two reasons:
first—the Mysteries were ancient analogues of Freemasonry, and by means of
the study of symbols in them, along with their uses of initiation and
ritual, something can be learned about the nature of our own Ritual;
'second—the Mysteries left behind them much which became embodied in general
Diropean culture and from this culture early Freemasonry inherited certain
words in its nomenclature, and certain modes of ritual.

If you feel drawn to
that school of interpretation, and you are fortunate if you are because it
is a noble and fascinating subject, you have an inexhaustible literature to
select from, among them several very great books. Perhaps the most
interesting book to begin with would be Sir Samuel Dill's Roman Society
From Nero To Marcus Aurelius; especially the chapters in it on The
Mystery Cults, The Collegia, and Mithraism; and also the article entitled
"Mystery" in The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition.

The Ancient Mysteries go
by other names, such as Mystery Cults, The. Mysteries, and so on forth, and
among themselves they differed much one from another; but taken together
they are various forms of what at bottom is one thing. Each one was an
organized religion; it was secret or private to its own members; new members
were admitted by initiation; rituals, symbols, and ceremonies were employed;
there were modes of recognition; secret words, passwords, etc.; the members
were divided in grades or degrees; each local branch had a room or temple of
its own with officers; and the climax of initiation in most of them was a
ritualistic death and rising again. Certain of their words, symbols, and
rites lingered long after them (the Mysteries were destroyed by the
Christian Church) and reappear here and there in traditions, legends, myths,
tales,
166 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

poems, and in rituals in churches and
secret societies—it is believed by a few Masonic writers that the Legend of
the Third Degree may have been thus inherited; be that as it may, it is
certain that Freemasonry owes something to the Mysteries in a far-off,
roundabout way. The Eleusinian Mysteries, Greater and Less; the Mystery of
Mithia; the Cult of Isis; the cult of Serapis; and the Worship of Magna
Mater are among the most important.

It was not Dr. Mackey's
contention that Freemasonry is itself a Mystery Cult, or that it had its
origin in one among them, but he believed that in them were the origins of a
number of our symbols and rites, therefore he had a tendency to look back to
them for clues to the meaning of our own symbols; and since he did he may be
thought of as the first of a line of Masonic writers who have had the same
views of them.

Other writers before and
since, largely since, have had other views, and have been the leaders in
what may be loosely described as a number of "schools of thought," or
"general theories" of the symbols and Ritual. The more important of these
are: the theory that Freemasonry originated in the Crusades; the theory that
it began with the Kabbalists; that it grew out of Hermetism of the Middle
Ages; that it is a form of occultism; that it is an offshoot of Astrology,
or of Alchemy; that it had a Theosophical origin; that it originated among
the Rosicrucians, the Druses, the Culdees, the Steinmetzer, or the Druids;
that it was a political conspiracy of the Jacobites in Scotland and France;
that it began among the Black Monks; that it was created by a group of
philosophers and antiquarians in England during the Enlightenment; that it
is a form of Mysticism, being one line in the claim of mysteries called the
Secret Tradition; that it harks back to the Ancient Jews; or even that its
sources are to be found among scattered and obscure rites and customs among
primitive secret societies.

ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONIC SYMBOLS
167

There are a
few others too trivial for mention, some of them of a singularity over and
above credence, or of an irrationality which shocks reason, as, in example,
old Le Plongeon's notion, set forth in a heavy book, that Freemasonry was
invented by the Maya Indians "20,000 years ago" (the Mayas in fact
flourished about 1500 years ago). Perhaps the sublimest height of absurdity
was reached by enthusiastic, credulous, voluminous dear old Dr. George
Oliver who flourished mightily over a century ago in England and who
asserted that Freemasonry had existed before God created the world, its gems
scattered here and there among the storms of Chaos!

You need not permit
yourself to be disturbed by the fear that you may become lost among these
"schools" of theory. In no case is one of them a "school" in any true sense
of that word; nor are they in most instances established theories; rather
they represent tendencies, or lines of research, and there is no need for a
man to be converted to any one of them, nor to take sides with one against
the others; certainly no one of them has ever been officially adopted or
endorsed by the Fraternity.

Each man who comes into
the study and research of the Ritual and Symbols ought to stand on his own
feet, be independent, trust to his own intelligence, be in a position to
accept facts and to see truths where he finds them and regardless of what
auspices he finds them under, and have that liberty of mind which the Ritual
itself enjoins upon him. There was no purpose in these pages, and should
never be in other Masonic books, to convert a reader to any "theory." If
there is a truth to be had about the Ritual what difference does it make
where it is found? If a fact is to be had, it is a fact and is unaffected by
the place where it is found, and needs no label on it. If in the following
paragraphs some characterization is made of the books that are mentioned in
one of the "theories" it is not to prejudice them, or to prejudice you for
or against them, but rather to describe and to "place" them.

168 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

An intriguingly
interesting theory is that which would trace back to the Kabbalah certain of
our symbols—in his article on "Kabalistic Tradition and Masonry" in his New
Encyclopedia of Freemasonry Bro. A. E. Waite mentions Solomon's Temple, the
Pillars J and B, the Lost Word, etc., of which he found intimations in the
Sepher Ha Zohar ("Book of Splendor") one of the principal texts. According
to H. Snaetz in his eleven volume History of the Jews the Kabbalists were a
small number of occultists among the Jews in Nineteenth Century. Spain, who,
believed they had found in their own religion secrets of power which could
be known only to adepts; they wrote a certain number of treatises of which
four or five became a kind of sacred canon, or selection (the meaning of the
word Kabbalah), and while these are very cryptic, almost as if written in
code, they contain here and there pages and paragraphs of a strange beauty
and of, now and then, a sudden profundity. Christian Ginsberg's The Kabbalah
is a brief and simple description of that literature. On the subject of
Masonry and the Kabbalah you will find chapters and essays in many of the
general works on Symbolism and on Masonic History, most of which are noted
below.

Three rare and out of
print books: The famous Transmigration of Symbols, by Count Goblet d'
Alviela; The Lost Language of Symbolism, by Harold Bayley; and The Great
Symbol, by Sidney Klein, one-time Worshipful Master of Quatuor Coronati
Lodge, are books for a Mason to read because they have a way of interpreting
Masonry which is at the same time a way of discussing symbolism itself, and
for its own sake; and why Masonic writers have written so few books on
Symbolism apart from particular symbols it is difficult to say, for an
understanding of symbolism is prerequisite to an understanding of any
particular Masonic symbol.

ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONIC SYMBOLS
169

During the
past decades men in other fields of scholarship have published many works of
a new and a far-reaching importance on the subject, because they have found
that symbolism has in itself a more practical use in thought than had been
previously supposed. Too, there has been developed a new branch of logic,
called symbolic logic; a new branch of the study of language, called
semantics, in which words are discussed as symbols. In anthropology language
itself is called symbolism; while in mathematics men like Young, Lewis,
Keyser, and Russell have developed new techniques by using mathematical
symbols—Einstein's Theory of Relativity lies partly in this field. There is
nothing occult, cloudy, vague, amorphous, ambiguous in symbolism if a man
understands what symbols are and how to use them— Geometry and Algebra are
full of them.

A symbol is used to
represent something other than itself; what that something is may be some
whole of thought or knowledge; something general and established that men
are doing in work or the arts; or something which belongs to such things as
patriotism or religion. It is a means of having one of these wholes brought
to the attention of men when it is important to do so; and to do so
instantly, for one glance at a symbol is sufficient for that purpose. There
are for these reasons countless symbols, ever have been and ever will be.
And there are times when they become of world importance, as we saw in the
period of the second World War, when that curious and ancient symbol, the
swastika, the fasces, the rising sun, the star, the hammer and sickle, and
the letter V were like battle flags for whole peoples.

A certain Relativist set
out to explain in plain language the full meaning of a single equation
written in mathematical symbols which Professor Einstein has used in one of
his treatises; and in the end found he had written a book of some 600 pages.
The power of symbols to suggest and to stimulate thoughts beyond
computation. It is for this
170 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

same reason that our Masonic Ritual
is found to be so inexhaustible, so rich and full that it seems to
infinitize itself in every direction. There is in it the power of symbolism.
Its method is to set before a candidate a symbol, and then to leave it to
him to think out afterwards what that symbol represents—and it is something
the candidate can keep on thinking out for the rest of his days. And there
are so many of these symbols in it that if the truths which they represent
were to be stated in full in plain language it would take years to do it,
and the statements would fill hundreds of books.

When a mathematician
writes down his formulae in algebra or the calculus, he employs mathematical
symbols only, and as strictly defined in and by mathematics itself; he would
be considered guilty of a stupid and inexcusable blunder if he were to
introduce into them political and religious symbols. Therein is the first
law or canon of Masonic interpretation: each symbol in Freemasonry is a
Masonic symbol, and is to be interpreted in the terms of Masonry itself.
Freemasonry is an autonomous society of independent and responsible men who
have formed themselves into a free association to enjoy and to perpetrate a
fraternalism of a particular kind. Whatever else a symbol may mean
elsewhere, in Freemasonry it means something which belongs to that
Fraternity.

In the Ritual the two
hundred or so symbols are arranged in a certain order, each one with a place
of its own, each one leading to another and assisting the candidate to
understand that other. This may be described as the second canon of Masonic
interpretation: a given symbol is to be interpreted not in vacuo, as if it
were standing apart or above, but in the terms of its place in the Ritual.
It is for this reason that we have a Ritual instead of a series of separate
symbols. Freemasonry is a whole and has a meaning as a whole, and the Ritual
is the Great Symbol which represents that whole
ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MASONIC SYMBOLS
171

of meaning. And it is for this reason
that we describe Masonry as a "progressive service." The Candidate makes a
"progress, an advance, from place to place and station to station, and by
the time he has traversed the journey from his first moment in the
Preparation Room to the last emblem in Lecture of the Third Degree he has
had presented to him, as in a panorama, the complete assemblage of those
truths and realities, which are what Freemasonry is as a whole.

APPENDICES

AND

INDEXAppendix I

REFERENCES TO MACKEY'S ENCYCLOPÆDIA,

Revised Edition

The one
reference work on Freemasonry to which there is in this land universal
access is Mackey's Encyclopedia. This work is not official or final and
there is some need of caution in using it, seeing that many new facts have
been discovered since it was last revised, but it continues to be one of the
handiest of our reference works. Brother Robert Ingham Clegg,
Editor-in-Chief of the Masonic History Company, prepared a list of
references to Mackey's Encyclopedia to be used in conjunction with the
chapters of this book, with which the paragraphs as given below coincide. In
some instances Brother Clegg has incorporated certain explanations of his
own.

Chapter I: WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT

Antiquity of Freemasonry (and
Freemasonry's symbolic ex

pression of religious ideas), p. 66.

Definition of Freemasonry, p. 202.

Ethics of Freemasonry, p. 252.

Exclusiveness of Freemasonry, p. 256.

Mysteries, Ancient (the priesthood of
olden times teaching

secretly by
symbols the world's first philosophies), p. 497

173

174 THE GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Oaths, their purpose, their
reasonableness and their justifica tion, p. 522.

Primitive Freemasonry, Fundamental
features of the Institu tion, p. 384.

Religion of Masonry. The religious
aims and practices taught by its philosophy, p. 617.

The series
of ceremonies combined into a system forms the ritual which in the inner or
outer aspects becomes esoteric or exoteric accordingly. Ritual is the
method of instruction by which the means of recognising one another is
taught the newcomers among the Brotherhood, the sign posts by whose light we
are directed to the scientific and philosophical treasures of the Craft and
the wealth of associations in the evidence and encouragement toward
Masonic progress submitted to the initiate by the lodge.

Symbolism,
The Science of, p. 754. The distinction between emblems and symbols is
explained and the inter-relation of them as the very al phabet of the Craft
is made clear and helpful. These are the very beacon lights by which the
writers and expounders of ritual blaze the way to proficiency. They are
aids to the memory, suggestive reminders of important lessons, features
that as the very elements in the face of an old friend make Freemasonry
known and beloved.

good, the
teaching of moral duties, their formation, the distinction between acts
obligatory and acts offending, the essence of initiation, and the vast
scope of the lodge.

Eleusinian Mysteries, p. 237;
Initiation, p. 353; Mysteries, An

cient, p.
497; Mystery, p. 500. Describes the earliest uses of drama to teach
philosophical truths by the rite of initiation, the obviously probable
entrance to any secret society. The power and prominence of such ancient
organisations related to some extent with Freemasonry in performance and in
purpose are described up to their decline when the work was continued by
other agencies of like objects and of more successful plans.

Alchemy, p. 44; Morality of
Freemasonry, p. 492. Both of these relate to the lesson of

Divine
Truth and the formation for a system of morality sought and as far as they
understood it taught by the old philosophers with whom we Freemasons are so
much in accord by the use of a similar symbolism and having a like
objective, the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man.

p. 68;
Euresis, p. 254. These five references treat of the essential features in
the climax of the Craft ceremonies, the summing up for the individual
candidate of the experience and the aims of those who are faithful even
unto death. Freemasonry rightly understood gains from ritual and monitor
the spur of endeavour and the solace sure of reward.

cord, p.
284. Democratic rule implies the just collective government of themselves
by free men. Just as Free masonry has its peculiar strength in the free
choice of its members to become initiates of their own accord and that
they have the qualifications to do so by being themselves free born and
free men, so is the democracy formed of those united to govern themselves
with due regard to the personal liberty and equality of each. Only by
knowledge of what is meant by Masonic freedom, liberty, and equality, may
one best understand that democracy intended by the Freemason fathers of the
Republic in the making of its Constitution.

Scales, p. 666; Equality, p. 247.
Both refer to the lesson of the balance, and both ought to

be
considered in connection with the Level, p. 242. A just Masonic
appreciation of these leads not to the anarchy recognising no distinction,
but to that brotherhood which rejoices unselfishly in our successful
neighbour's preferment.

question
considered in the present connection. A careful
178 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

examination of the information furnished under these heads will give a
close intimacy with the attitude of Free masons now and of old to industry,
from the era of the Operative Craft to that of the present-day Speculative
Institution. What we Freemasons may be has its sure foot hold in the past.
What we should be rests upon our enlightened understanding of what has gone
before and of the heritage committed to our keeping.

(the reader
may also note to advantage the reference, on page 301, to the initials of
the Hebrew words for Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, forming, when combined,
the English name for Deity); Grand Orient of France and the Grand Lodge of
England, p. 278; "I am that I am" (Eheyeh asher Eheyeh), p. 234; Jehovah,
p. 363; Religion of Masonry, p. 617; Religious Qualifications, p. 619;
Universality of Masonry, p. 817.

The four
studies are the means to impress upon the initiate the fundamental facts
and prin ciples of the Fraternity; the ritual is the form or garment of the
body of instruction, the lectures comprise the primer of the Institution,
and the catechism is the method of displaying in a concise fashion the real
familiarity the Freemason possesses of the Masonic alphabet of his science.

Knowledge, p. 416; Truth, p. 805.
These refer to the search indicated by the Mysteries of

old (see
page 497) where under the guise of a simple symbolism profound philosophies
were communicated to those capable of receiving them. Seeking Truth,
symbolised by the Word, and finding knowledge, is ever the real object of
the Freemason's pursuit.

Ashlar, p. 80. A study of the
progressive stages wherein the candidate is divested of the

superfluous
and becomes fitted for the nobler service of the Great Architect.

Apprentice, p. 70. There are
twenty-one references under this head which should be

noted with
the one treating of "Apron," p. 72; "Initiation," p. 353, and "Mysteries"
and "Mysticism," pp. 496-500. All contain most suggestive in formation
relative to the instruction and meaning of the first steps in educating the
candidate. See also "Preparation of the Candidate," p. 578, and "Preparing
Brother," P. 578.

references
should be read with the one dealing with "Degrees," p. 203, and "Desaguliers,"
p. 207. Of the latter to whom we may not unreasonably credit some service
in the science of the Second Degree, it has been said that he "taught two
gracious kings to view all Boyle ennobled and all Bacon knew.”

Gilds, p. 296.

182 THE
GREAT TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

Lodge, p. 449. On pages 449-452 there
are twenty-two references to the word "lodge" or

the Masonic
terms of which it is a part. It is not surprising that the word dealing
with congregations of Freemasons solemnly convened for work and worship
should have so prominent and frequent a use by the brethren.

Preston, p. 579. See also "Prestonian
Lecture" and "Prestonian Lectures" on p. 582;

"Harodim,"
p. 319. Preston, a most methodical student and writer, laid down the
monitorial portion of the work which was later concisely arranged by
Thomas Smith Webb whose biography on page 841 should therefore be read in
conjunction with that of Preston.

Masonic
writers of English-speaking countries have not devoted to the Philosophy of
Masonry the attention bestowed upon it by French and German students, and it
is accordingly somewhat difficult to draw up a list of works that may be
whole-heartedly recommended. Certain titles in the list given herewith are
more or less out of date and others have not much substance in them, but as
a whole they will be found to cover fairly well the Great Teachings of
Masonry. A few German titles are included in order that an American or
English reader may contrast various points of view. The author is indebted
to Brother Jacob Hugo Tatsch for assistance in preparing this bibliography.